


Incandescent

by Siyah_Kedi



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, old, originally written in 2012
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 19:16:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 45,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Siyah_Kedi
Summary: This turned out to be the result of cryptomnesia, and too closely aligned with "Ai No Kusabi" for me to continue.





	1. Chapter 1

In Luminesca, slaves were as common as dirt.  House slaves to do the cooking and cleaning for the Silvers, Road slaves for transport and any physical labour that needed doing, and then the Pleasure slaves – popularly known as Pets – for the entertainment.   Most Pets were specially bred for the purpose.  Hyper sensitive, with genetic modifications to their DNA to decrease the undesirables like aggression and fear.  They were soft, doe-eyed things and I hated each and every one of them.  I was born a half-breed, born from a Pet who’d won her freedom and gotten the sterility reversed, and one of the street men who had no status in Luminesca.   As a mutt, I had no status either.  I ran away from home when I was old enough to pick pockets, and I lived out of other people’s trash.  My only friend was Lanzi, another runaway like me.  Unlike me, both her parents had been Pets, and between them had enough status to almost be real people.  Real as opposed to us mutts, I mean.  We don’t officially exist as far as the Brilliant Lumi is concerned.  If Lumi’s real, I’ve decided she must hate everyone.  Lanzi’s people had been born and raised in Luminesca, and that made them practically royalty.  But they were still unhappy with their life, which is why they came here to Sublucida – the one place I’ve been dying to get out of from the word go. 

There’s a saying I’ve heard once or twice, about greener grass on some other side, but I’d never really understood it until Lanzi took me back to her house when we were about ten years old and I met her parents.  She’d never lost contact with them the way I did with mine.  She’d run away, but she always knew she had a roof to come back to if the nights got too cold or the sky too wet.  I never did understand Lanzi that well.  But I looked at her parents, practically _royalty_ , living in the slums underneath the city of Light, happy as a horde of flies in a pile of horse shit, and I started to understand it.  They’d wanted out and they got it.  I wanted out, and nothing was going to be good enough until I got up there. 

 _Luminesca._   The city of light, where even after the suns went down it was still bright as the middle of the day.  I was tired of the dark, and Luminesca was the Promised Land.  I wanted my greener grass, and I wanted that happiness I saw in Lanzi’s parent’s faces, and the only place I was going to find it was Luminesca.  I spent five years finding ways around the fences and the walls.  It took me two more years to find a way around the security; I’ve been tossed out on my ass by Luminors more times than I cared to count, but even though Lanzi worried like shit for me, she never stopped encouraging me either.  And they never hurt me; I was less than an insect to them, and I knew it as well as they did.  And they were just doing their jobs so even after Mikki taught me how to use the air-razor I nicked off one of them before he chucked me back through the Gates, I never used it on them.  I never had a reason. 


	2. Chapter 2

But Lanzi’s parents had taught me another lesson, this one more specific than that shit about happiness and green grass.  They never knew about that one, but they sat me down one day – I guess I was about sixteen then, and Lanzi and I dropped in on them unexpectedly for dinner one night – and told me they knew about my attempts to get into Luminesca.  They didn’t offer to help – they were living under the radar, and that’s part of what made them so happy – but they told me that they’d been there before, and I should use whatever I could, but only when necessary. 

I didn’t understand that, and told them so.  It went something like “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” because I’ve always been a foul-mouthed little shit – Lanzi tells me that about three times a day, and that’s when I’m watching my language – and I didn’t know a polite way to ask it. 

“It means,” said Arania, her mother, “that we know you have the razor.” 

I think I may have knocked over one of their lamps.  I remember jumping up and nearly getting myself through the door before Daunell practically tackled me.  It is highly illegal for a mutt like me to carry anything resembling a weapon – we’re easier to control if we can’t fight back – and if I got caught by any of the Luminors with it, it’d be a one-way ticket to the Oubliette for me, and if I was lucky I might see the suns once every ten years.  I knew that once these former playmates knew I had it – no matter that they’d been practically foster parents to me after I ran out on my real ones, and never mind the fact that I’d been their only daughter’s best friend for fifteen years – they’d turn me in and all my chances were blown.

Knew it, that is, until Daunell pinned me to the floor in one of his crazy wrestling moves he learned as a Pet and held me there until my breath ran out. 

“We’re not telling a soul,” Daunell whispered.  I stopped struggling long enough for him to ease up off me a bit and let me get some air. 

“What? Why the hell not?” 

“You’ve never been happy in Sublucida,” Arania said.  “We’ve always known how badly you want to get into Luminesca, and Lanzi told us when you tussled with those Luminors.  She also said you’d taken off with something of theirs when they weren’t paying attention, and it didn’t take much to figure out what you had.”  I always liked Arania.  She never quite lost that wide-eyed innocence that only Pets have, despite whatever the fuck goes on behind closed doors.  They can’t help it; they’re made that way.  I was fiercely glad that Lanzi skipped out on that particular genetic trait.  On most of the Pets, it freaked me the fuck out, but on Arania you kinda got the impression that she’d look like that whether she’d been born in a beaker or not.  She also had a beautiful, soft voice that was one of the only things that could take me down out of a Rage, one of the legacies of my own no-name father.  That’s another reason Sublucida is such a shitty place to live – it’s basically the shit-pot for failed genetic experiments and the other Undesirables from Luminesca, the ones who aren’t quite bad enough to get a full-time gig in the Oubliette but nobody wants hanging around in the pure, pristine streets of Luminesca. 

I admit, my mental image of Luminesca had the streets paved with silver while pure water ran in fountains on every street corner.  I thought of all the buildings as being white, and all the people being covered in white too – white clothes, white hair.  I knew the Luminors were all over white, and that may have skewed my mental image a little bit.  I sure as shit knew that my dirty, dark ass wouldn’t be welcome up there – I have naturally tanned-brown skin, and black eyes and hair, and when I pictured myself walking through Luminesca I was pretty sure that everybody would immediately know I didn’t belong and kick me out.  It looked, in my head, like a dark stain oozing along those silver streets.  I wanted to get to Luminesca so bad, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realised just how _terrified_ I was of reaching that dream.  Luminesca also had a tendency to take me right off whatever train of thought I’d been on.  I never met the man my mother fucked enough times to get knocked up with me, but since I still remember her as being kinda silvery.  I didn’t get my colouring from her, and one of my earliest memories was throwing a little plastic toy hard enough from my crib that it put a hole in my bedroom wall.  Since my mother was a former Pet, it’s a pretty safe bet that I didn’t get the rages from her, either, and Arania told me that my father’s rages had been pretty infamous for a while, before my mother married him.  I couldn’t remember if she had the Petvoice or not, could barely bring her face into my mind – it was just a light-blond blur in my head – but if she did, and she could use it like Arania could to calm people down out of the rages, then it was no wonder my father calmed down a hell of a lot after she married him.  All Arania’s got to do when I’m raging is say my name, and it’s like a bucket of ice water gets dumped down my back. 

“So now you know,” I said.  “What the fuck are you gonna do with me now?”

Daunell leaned on me a little harder and all the breath sort of _whuffed_ out of my chest.  I wheezed when he let me breathe again.  “Watch your language for a moment, son,” he said, and his point was enforced by the elbow he was still digging into my kidney.  “We’re not going to do anything with you except talk.  And you will sit there quietly and listen, you understand?”

I nodded.  What the fuck else was I gonna do, mouth off again?  Not while he had me down on the floor like that.  It was good enough for Daunell; he eased up a little bit and took a deep breath.  “Having one of those things,” he said.  “It’s a lot of power.  You might decide to try it out one day.”

At that point, I’m thinking _like hell.  I don’t want to die._   But he told me to be quiet and listen, and I wasn’t sure if they didn’t have one of their own stashed away somewhere, easily accessible enough that they could pull it out and use it on me.  I’ve never seen one in action; I didn’t even spend too much time looking at the one I had, feeling like it must have given off some aura of evil that would let everyone else know that I took the damn thing and was hiding it in the shithole I called a house.  But I’d heard stories that’d curl your hair, about how the blade was almost invisible if it was clean, and so hot that it cauterized the wounds it made as it was making them.  So not only did you get cut open, you also got burned to a crisp at the same time.  It seemed like a very effected method to torture someone, and I couldn’t even _imagine_ why the Luminors – those supposed paragons of peace and other virtues – would carry them. 

Then as that thought occurred to me, I realised that they usually carried them when they patrolled around Sublucida and I realised that they were carrying them against _us._   The so-called Undesirables.  It made me kinda sick to my stomach. 

“What we’re trying to say,” Arania said, picking up the thread of conversation where Daunell had dropped it.  “Is that while it may be very tempting, we don’t want you to just take it out and, well, play with it.”

“ _Ari,_ ” Daunell said, a warning I didn’t understand in his voice.  Arania turned a very attractive shade of pink. 

“I didn’t mean it like that and you know it,” she scolded him.  It suddenly occurred to me what they were talking about, and I’m pretty sure that’s about the point that my face turned cherry red.  “Learn how to use it first,” Arania said to me.  “And then only use it if you have no other options.”

“We know how important it is that you get out of Sublucida,” Daunell added.  “But you’ll never see the Lights if you get yourself tossed down the Oubliette.  If you have to fight, use your fists. Your feet.  Learn how to use things around you, like broken pieces of plastic.  Use everything you can before you go for the razor.  That’ll be your last resort, if it comes down to the razor or your life.”  He slowly let me up.  I sat up and massaged my back where he’d been laying on me.

“I understand,” I said, and I did.  And I realised I could apply that advice to just about everything.  I’d tried living in Sublucida, tried being happy there.  Couldn’t.  My last resort was a run for Luminesca.  I was a hard worker, and I was pretty sure that if I could get _in,_ I’d be able to find a job as a Roadie for someone.  Heavy labour and mucking around with whatever needed doing weren’t the ideal jobs I’d considered, but it would be a job in Luminesca, and jobs came with things like homes and wages.  And that’s all I wanted.  A chance to live in Luminesca.  I used to daydream that once I got up there, if I got a job fast enough as a Road slave, I could save enough money for a really good house and invite Lanzi up to live with me.  She wanted out of Sublucida as bad as I did, but she had a home and she wasn’t too eager to become a House slave. 

Neither of us even considered the possibility of becoming pets.  She wasn’t pretty enough, though she was plenty pretty for Sublucida, and I’d have died before I became a pleasure toy for some rich bitch to get off on.  Not to mention the total and overwhelmingly obvious half-breed cast to my features.  Who would want me?  But I was strong and I could work hard.  All I had to do was _get there._


	3. Chapter 3

The best and worst night of my life came just a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday.  Or what I thought of as my birthday.  I couldn’t remember it, not after so long away from anyone who actually knew, and since it was just another day like any other it didn’t really matter one way or another to me.  So when Lanzi came down and said it was my birthday, I just shrugged and went with it.  Seventeen.  It was a good age to be; I was, by Sublucida law, now an adult and capable of getting a job and all the assorted shit that went along with having reached my majority.  On the downside, if I got caught doing anything more serious than knocking over the disposables for dinner it’d be incarceration.  Not in the Oubliette; that particular horror was saved for the really _shitty_ people who came out of Luminesca.  Sublucida was its own particular horror, though, and from where I was standing there wasn’t much difference between the Oubliette and Sublucida.  I still didn’t want my ass locked up, because they could do it for anywhere between six months and the rest of your _life._   If I somehow fucked up badly enough to get locked up for life, my dreams of getting out of Sublucida were dead and buried.  So for the first time in my life, I made an effort to clean up.  I shaved, I showered as often as I could at the public bath houses, and I started watching my language.  This meant, though, that I was constantly being looked after by Lanzi, who had appointed herself my Language Teacher and thwacked me across the back of the head if she even _thought_ I was about to say something foul. 

Since foul was pretty much the extent of my vocabulary at the time, I walked around with a perpetual headache for two weeks. 

Then I did the Bad Thing.  I had a mother of a headache, and I’d been drinking to take the edge off it even though Lanzi kept telling me that the fermented fruit juice would just make it worse in the morning.  After my fourth or fifth glass things got foggy.  Somehow, I ended up on the bridge that connected Sublucida with Luminesca.  I had nothing to do with the trouble brewing there, and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but when I saw the riot break out between the Luminors and some of Sublucida’s shadier characters, there wasn’t enough time to get away.  So, drunk and stupid with it, I joined the battle.  I’d left the air-razor at the shack Lanzi and I slept in when we weren’t at her parents or somewhere else.  It was as much a home to me as anything else, and I’d left the razor there because there was nowhere else to hide it.  Lucky me. 

I had nothing to fight with except my fists, but I put them to good use and took down one of the Luminors before another one of them swamped me. 

“Get your filthy hands off me, you dirty son of a dog!” It wasn’t the best insult, but even in my foggy brain I realised that Lanzi would kill me if I broke my non-swearing streak.  It didn’t occur to me to wonder what she would do if she found out I’d been involved – however incidentally – in the riot on the Shadow Bridge. 

“Well now.”  The voice was smooth, cultured, but I couldn’t get a look at his face in the flickering, uneven light.  “You are a feisty one.  Settle down young man, I know you are not involved in this skirmish.” 

I hated being talked to like I was a little kid.  It didn’t matter that he was about a foot and a half taller than me, or that I was drunk and unarmed.  I swung around with my fist, intending to catch him across the face, but it stopped before connecting.  I looked at it for a moment while my brain struggled to catch up.  He’d caught it in his hand, without any apparent effort.  Some small shred of self-preservation left behind under the alcoholic haze told me to stop struggling, and for the first time in my life, I listened to it.  Lanzi would have been proud.

“Where do you live?”

“Fuck you.” Well, proud for all of about five seconds.  I winced, already imagining the slap across my face for language.  The Luminors were people you didn’t mess with and if I’d been in my right mind I would have realised this.  Probably.  And he was capable of doing a hell of a lot more damage than Lanzi could. 

For some reason, though, when I finally got a good look at his face – and realised that he was carrying me away from the fighting – it was amused, not angry.  “Where do you live?”

His voice was as calm as his face.  Feeling like a little kid, I muttered the address of the shack.  I saw one of his eyebrows lift, but he didn’t say anything else until we turned onto the street where Lanzi was waiting.  He’d tucked me up under one arm, and I’d hit him once and nearly broken my hand.  I don’t think he even noticed the blow.  Finally deciding that it was better than being slung over his shoulder, I settled down and let him carry me. 

This lasted all the way up until he was nearing the front door and I realised that he was going to knock on the door and talk to Lanzi, and not only did this reinforce the notion that he thought of me as a child – which pissed me off – I knew it would piss Lanzi off and then she’d be hell to deal with for the next three months.

“This is it,” I told him.  “You can put me down now, I promise I’ll go inside and be a good little orphan from now on!”

His grip tightened as I squirmed.  “Your sister is worried about you,” he said, and knocked on the front door.  In that moment, I swear I could have killed him, Luminor or not. 

“She’s not my fucking keeper!”

“ _Ayden!_ ” 

Wonderful.  Now I’d been caught swearing when I’d been doing so well, and Lanzi was going to be a bitch about everything.  The jackass finally set me down on the ground, and I realised this was a mistake a split second later when the alcohol I’d consumed caught up with my equilibrium being thrown off from having been carried the whole way.  I hit the ground hard, right at Lanzi’s feet.  With supreme effort, I kept myself from puking into the fake grass that lined the walkway. 

“Oh, by the lights, Ayden, I was worried sick!  What the hell happened!  Why is a –” she looked up – and up, and up, into the face of the Luminor who’d brought me back.  “I heard about the riot and I knew you’d been heading that way, and I was so worried!”  She pounced on me, making my head spin, and gave me a tight hug.  She dragged me half into the doorway before the Luminor picked me up again. 

“If you will allow me,” he said politely.  I would have added something but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth again it’d be more than words spewing out. 

“Please,” Lanzi said, clearly flustered.  I could see her hands fluttering around my shoulders, but it made me dizzier and I had to close my eyes.  “Just set him right there,” she said, and since there were only three rooms to the tiny little house – what passed for our sitting room and sleeping room, a toilet room, and a kitchenette – I knew she was pointing to the mattress I usually slept on, near the far side of the wall. 

“You live here?” The Luminor set me down and pulled the cover over me.  I snarled at him, but it upset my stomach so I settled for curling into a ball and focusing on not puking while he talked. 

“Sometimes,” Lanzi said.  “Thank you so much for bringing him back, sir, I really appreciate it.  Where did you find him?”

There was a moment of silence then, long enough for an icy pit of dread to settle in my stomach. 

“The outskirts of the fighting at the Bridge,” the Luminor said finally.  “He was just wandering, but he seems a little drunk and I did not want him to be involved.”  There was something odd about his tone of voice, and I risked opening my eyes.  Stationary once again, my stomach seemed to be settling.  The Luminor dwarfed Lanzi, who was shorter than me, and seemed to fill up the tiny shack with his presence.  I saw the air-razor holster at his hip and the dread turned into frozen terror that somehow he would sense that I had one hidden just under this mattress he’d set me on.  Beneath the fear, I wondered blankly why he was lying for me.

“Thank the lights,” Lanzi said.  “And thank you…um…”

“My name is Daemian,” the Luminor offered.  “Did you say his name was…Ayden?”

“Yes,” Lanzi said.  “I’m Alanziara, but most people call me Lanzi for short.  It was a pleasure to meet you, Sir Daemian, and thank you again for bringing Ayden back, but –”

“Ayden,” Luminor Daemian said, distracted and clearly not listening to her.  “That is an unusual name.  Do you perhaps know Clarianne?” He swung around, and I met his gaze.  His eyes were ice-blue. 

The terror gave way to fury.  “How do you know my mother?”

“Mother?” He seemed startled, and I was ready to come off the bed and kill him all over again. “She is happy, then?”

“How the fuck should I know?  And why the fuck do you care?”

He gave a small smile.  “Clarianne was once a very good friend of mine.  A very special friend.”

Fury gave way before a towering, black rage.  Just because I’d run away and lived on the streets, just because I hadn’t seen my mother in nearly ten years, and just because I’d lived my whole life in Sublucida – it didn’t mean I didn’t know what _that_ meant.  In Luminesca, a ‘special friend’ was a fucktoy or a slave. 

“My mother was not your pet!” I shouted.  He looked startled. 

“Of course not,” he said, but I didn’t hear him.  I could feel my rage burning out the rest of the emotions. It was also using the alcohol as fuel and the longer it burned like a bonfire in my chest, the more sober I felt. 

“Get out of my house, you whoring son of a diseased mongrel!” I shoved at him, barely aware of anything except the curtain of red sliding down my vision in a haze.  He stumbled back, shock evident on his face. 

“I see the resemblance,” he said, and flourished a bow at a startled Lanzi.  He swept out the door before I could say anything else, and my fury evaporated like it had never been there.  Drained, I sank back to the mattress, watching as the red was enveloped by black. 


	4. Chapter 4

The next time I opened my eyes, I was staring up at the ceiling of Lanzi’s bedroom in her parents' house.  I felt like I’d been run over by an aircar, and it was a struggle just to sit up.  Arania moved into my field of vision, a soft smile on her face.  “I heard what you did.  I thought you hated your mother.”

“I do,” I mumbled.  I didn’t know how to explain to anyone, much less her.  I hated that my mother had come from Luminesca, hated that she’d been someone’s _special friend._   I hated it even more that that man had been the one to get me out of trouble, and had brought me home and tucked me in like a little kid. 

“Oh, lad,” she said.  “It’s not as bad as they say down here.”

Arania and Daunell had never spoken to me of their time in Luminesca before.  I couldn’t even get them to describe it to me.  So when she finally sat down on my bed, and explained what she had done as a slave in a Luminor’s house, I listened and for once didn’t open my mouth.

“No, not nearly as bad as they say.  Some masters are bad, of course, just like some Luminors aren’t the paragons of virtue they pretend to be.  But for the most part, I was a companion.  I was a friend.  I took him to dinners and parties, and the holoshows, and we talked.  I was there if he needed a woman, but he was gentle, and he valued me for my mind far more than my body.  I knew your mother, Ayden,” she added suddenly.  “Did the Luminor say his name was Daemian?”

I nodded, unable to find my voice.  All these years, and I had no idea she even knew who my mother was, much less had known her during her time in Luminesca. 

She nodded back.  “Daemian was not hers.  Or she was not Daemian’s, I suppose we could say.  She belonged to another man, a crueler man.  Daemian was her best friend, and the triangle between them nearly tore Luminesca apart.  It was such a scandal!”  She giggled, her eyes vacant with memories.  “I can laugh about it now, but at the time we were all afraid for our lives.  Daemian wanted her away from that man, but she refused to go for so long.  Finally, I think he actually kidnapped her.  He helped her get away, with the help of your father.  Clary and Morgan married once they came here, and because he was such an important man, she was allowed to stay once they were wed.  I don’t think she was ever truly happy with Morgan, but at least he wasn’t as bad as the other one.  And she told me once that he reminded her of Daemian, who was her one true friend.”

I was reeling.  “Morgan,” I said.  Arania’s hand came up over her mouth.

“I forgot,” she said.  “You didn’t know, did you?”

Too much information!  “Know what?”

“Ayden, your father was Morgantran.  He was a Luminor of high standing in Luminesca, and quite sought after for parties and other entertainments because of his unusual colouring.  You resemble him, a little bit.  You’ve got more of your mother in you, though.”  I can only imagine what my face looked like at that point.  She stopped and smiled.  “Would you like to see them?”

I don’t know what I said.  I’m not even sure if I managed to say anything at all.  But then she was up off the bed, and gone, and I had a few moments of silence to digest all that in.

A Luminor.  And a pet.  No wonder they’d come to Sublucida to get married.  But that was a sham.  At least they _had_ been married, I decided.  At least I wasn’t the bastard I’d always believed myself to be.  I wondered if he was still around, and why I couldn’t remember him when I thought back on my foggiest memories of my first home, and my mother.  My head swam.

Arania came back holding a large book.  I’d seen it around the house a couple of times, but other than redirecting my attention from it, Arania and Daunell never mentioned it.  She sat down beside me and opened the cover. 

Images of people I’d never met stared up at me.  The people in Luminesca were genetically modified to be beautiful and powerful, and aged slower than other people.  Someone born in Sublucida to parents who’d never been anywhere else might age and die within a dozen decades.  In Luminesca and the other large cities of Incandescia, the people might live out their fullest life-span within thirty or more decades.  I wondered if those genes were transferable, if the reason I was so slowly growing and maturing when compared to my friends was the genes of my parents – both of whom must have been put together specifically to _their_ parents desires.  I had grand-parents, somewhere in Luminesca. 

This revelation was staggering.  I’d walked away from my parents at seven years old, old enough to support myself on the streets, and not looked back.  I called myself an orphan, because my mother and father could have been anywhere – back in Luminesca, somewhere in Sublucida, or dead – and I didn’t know.  I’d never thought about where they came from, or what their story was.

“Oh, this is Daemian, with Clary,” Arania said.  She pointed, and I looked.  There was the Luminor I’d met the other day.  Except for the hair, which was a little bit shorter, the picture could have been recent.  And beside him was a woman of surpassing beauty.  Her hair was silver, and it practically floated from her head, surrounding her body in a gleaming halo.  Her eyes, though, were coal black.  I’d never realised I got my eye-colour from my mother.  I could see myself in her face, in the shape of her eyes and the arch of her cheekbones.  If I smiled, I knew it would be reflected by the picture beneath Arania’s finger.

Arania turned the page.  “This is _that man,_ ” she said.  There was my mother again, standing beside another Luminor.  This one didn’t look as friendly, and the look on my mother’s face was purely unhappy.  There was no trace of the smile she’d been wearing in the previous image.  I ignored him, and focused on the picture of my mother.  Long, silvery hair, dark eyes.  A perfect, heart-shaped face.  She was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.  From somewhere deep inside, I began to wonder where she was, and what she was doing.  Ten years had gone by since I last saw her, and I knew she wouldn’t have changed much, but I wondered if she was still alive.  Ten years and I hadn’t cared, didn’t bother to find out where she was or if she was okay.  I suddenly wished I had.

The page turned again, and this time it was a group photo.  Seven or eight Luminors stood there, surrounded by their pets and friends.  I recognised Arania, and my mother was sandwiched between Daemian and her… master.  Beside the creepy-looking man was someone who could have been me.  His skin was a dark contrast to the paleness he was surrounded by, his hair was jet black, and I could see what Arania meant by ‘unusual colouring.’  He stood out like a sore thumb amidst the crowd of pale-haired, pale-skinned beauties.  The only difference between us was I had my mother’s eyes, and his – even from the distance the photographer must have been – were a vivid shade of gold. 

“That’s Morgan,” Arania said unnecessarily, pointing to the gold-eyed man.  “I can’t remember the rest of them – Lights, I used to know them all.  Daunell might know; he was friends with Morgan and the rest even before we all came here to Sublucida.” 

Arania handed me the book.  “You know all the important people now.  Have fun, Ayden, but just be careful you don’t tear anything.  Those pictures are irreplaceable.”  She let herself out of the room, and I stared down at the picture.

Mother, and Morgan, and Daemian and Arania, Daunell, the unnamed man who had been my mother’s master.  Mother was clearly in love with Daemian, I don’t care what Arania said, there was no mistaking that look in her eyes.  I’d seen it pass between Arania and Daunell, and Daunell, Arania and Lanzi often enough.  Familial love, comfortable and long-lasting.  I wondered if my mother had ever looked at me like that. 

Mother had been in love with Daemian, who rescued me the other day from my own drunken stupidity.  Daemian and Morgan helped get my mother away from the master, and then she’d come here and married Morgan.

Married _Morgan._  

I threw the book down as gently as I could and lurched to my feet.  “Arania!” I shouted, half-walking and half-stumbling through the door.  Arania hurried down the hallway, afraid something had gone wrong.  Daunell and Lanzi poked their heads around the corner, drawn by my shout, but they stayed back.

“What is it, Ayden?  What’s wrong?” Arania searched my face, looking for clues.

“My mother,” I said, and it was bitterly weird to say that out loud.  “Clary,” I said instead.  “She was in love with Daemian.  So why did she marry Morgan when she came to Sublucida?”

Arania was silent for a long moment.  Slowly, her face twisted up and then, like a dam breaking, she burst into laughter.  Helpless giggles shook her for so long that I started to lose my grip on my temper before she recovered herself.  “I’m so sorry, Ayden,” she said.  “It’s not the least bit funny to you.  Of course she was in love with Daemian, I should have told you.  And she married Morgan because Daemian wasn’t the least bit interested in her.”

“What?”

“Ayden, Daemian preferred men.  Clary was absolutely dizzy for him, but he never saw her as more than a sister or a best friend.”

I said, “Oh.”

There didn’t seem to be much else I _could_ say to that statement.  Arania giggled again, and then waved Daunell off.  Lanzi practically skipped down the hallway to me when Arania made her way back to whatever she’d been doing.

“You ever scare me like that again and I’ll steal your razor and slit your belly open, you dirty son of a bitch,” Lanzi said fiercely, but before I could get out more than a startled noise, she was hugging the air out of me. 

“Don’t talk about my mother that way,” I said when she let me breathe.

“ _You_ talk about your mother that way,” she pointed out.

“She’s _my_ mother,” I said.  “What did I do this time?”

“You were out cold for _two days_!  These rages aren’t healthy.  They _scare_ me, Ayden.”  When she buried her face in my chest and started shaking, I didn’t know what to think.  Or do.  But it wasn’t until she lifted her head and I saw the tears dripping down her face that I fell apart.

“I’m so sorry, Lanzi,” I said.  “I can’t help it.  I –” I’d never said this to her before.  “They scare me too,” I admitted quietly.  I’d always believed they were a product of my nameless father, some remnant of his failed genes.  Now I knew he was a Luminor, and no Luminor was accepted to the Academy with failed genes.  It must have been something else. 

She ruined the tender moment of sharing we’d created by smacking me across the back of the head.  Gently, but a smack is still a smack.  “You idiot,” she said affectionately, then turned on her heel and scampered back down the hallway.  I rubbed the back of my head and returned to the bedroom and those pictures. 

Halfway through the book, I saw Morgan’s and my mother’s wedding.  She was resplendent in a long, flowing dress and he was wearing his Luminor’s uniform, pure white and shining in the sun.  She looked happy. 

After the wedding pictures, I saw family pictures.  Daunell and Arania, Morgan and my mother, both holding babies.  One of them was a golden-haired girl, flashing a toothless smile at the photographer.  The other, cradled in my mother’s arms, was me. 

I rarely looked in mirrors.  I knew enough about what I looked like to recognise my features in my mother’s face, but I’d never bothered until I was fifteen or sixteen.  To see myself, so young and helpless, it was something of a shock. 

The other shock came when the pictures continued.  I grew; Lanzi grew.  Our parents didn’t change much, but that was because of the genetic modifications they’d had.  Hair styles changed, clothing changed, but they didn’t seem to age as we children did.  Arania looked almost the same now as she had in these pictures from ten years ago.  My mother and Morgan must be the same, too, I realised.  I wondered if I’d ever passed them on the street, neither of us knowing.  

Then in one picture, there was Lanzi, Daunell, Arania, and my mother and Morgan, but I wasn’t in it.  The smiles were strained, and beneath my mother’s coal-coloured eyes were dark smudges; they looked like bruises against her fair skin.  I felt a stab of guilt as I realised. 

I’d just run away.  Lanzi was visibly crying in this picture, and I was missing.  My mother looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, and the happy, smiling family memories were destroyed.  Morgan looked grim.  In the next photograph, Lanzi was missing, and no one was smiling.  I knew where she’d gone, of course.  She’d joined me and the gang I was forming.  Even at seven or eight, I was a terror.  I must have known back then, before the memories were swamped by time, that my father was a Luminor.  I gathered the other orphans to me who were my age, or younger, and a few of the older ones joined up to teach us how to get by.  Lanzi joined, but she never lost contact with her parents.

In the next picture, Morgan was gone.  My mother sat off to the side, and it was a family picture of Daunell, Arania, and Lanzi, with my mother as an added bonus.  The dark smudges beneath her eyes seemed like they’d been tattooed there.  A fresh wave of guilt rolled over me.  Ten years, and I’d never given her a second thought.  Ten years, and she’d spent every single day wondering where I was, if I was alive or dead. 

I put the book down, and went to find Arania again.  “Do you still talk to my mother?”

She glanced at me, startled.  “Of course,” she said quietly.  “Would you like to meet her?”

I took a deep breath.  “Yes, I would.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Don’t tell her about the razor,” Lanzi said.  She was hovering over me like a fairy godmother, and all the fussing was starting to get on my nerves.  “She’ll worry.  Oh, and don’t let her know you were out drinking the night of the raid.  You want to make a good impression on her.”

“I know.”

“You will remember to tell her that I’ve looked after you, right?  Don’t fidget like that, you’ll ruin your shirt.”

“I _know_.”

“I’m so nervous for you!  I can’t believe you never once asked about her.  She’s always writing letters to mother.  I don’t know if they ever talk about you, but you know how you won’t stand still for pictures any more, and this will be the first time she’s seen you since you were a little kid.”  Lanzi gasped suddenly.  “By the lights,” she said.  “ _Don’t swear!”_

“ _I fucking know!”_ I shouted, fed up with her.  She gasped again, giggled, and then hurried off.  _Girls!_   Lanzi was like an alien species sometimes!  I took a deep breath, and then walked out the door.  Lanzi was right of course, and her parents had never lost contact with my mother.  They were the ones who’d set this meeting up, and Daunell was the one who’d rented an aircar to drive me over to her house. 

I realised, the closer we came, that it was the same house I’d lived in when I was a kid.  I’d never have found my way here on my own – I set out to get lost when I ran away, and I managed it.  But the more I looked around as Daunell piloted the aircar down the narrow streets, the more I came to recognise. 

When the house loomed in the distance, I sank down in the seat, ignoring the reminder of Lanzi’s voice telling me not to wrinkle the shirt.  “I don’t think I can do this,” I said.  Daunell glanced over at me, then landed the aircar.  The house was still visible through the view-screen that shielded us. 

“Are you afraid?”

“Fucking petrified,” I admitted, then wanted to bite my tongue. 

“She’s just as nervous.  Just go in there, and be yourself, and everything will be fine.  I’ll be just outside if for some reason you need to leave.”  The words were supportive, but the tone said that if I left that house it’d better be in pieces.  “Oh,” he added.  “You might want to cut down on the swearing.  Clary’s not exactly delicate, but she might box your ears if she heard that kind of language coming out of your mouth.”

“better than a smack against the back of the head,” I muttered, and got out of the car.  He could have driven me all the way up to the door, but I preferred the minutes’ walk it would take to get there from where he parked. 

I walked straight up to the door, and before I could lose my nerve, knocked on it.  I glanced back and saw Daunell moving the aircar up to the house.  He flashed me a smile, then pulled out the informational he’d brought to read.  I felt like bolting, but before the message could make it to my feet, the door was swinging open and the angel from the photographs was standing there. 

“Oh… _Ayden!”_  

She practically fell on me then, hugging me tighter than Lanzi could ever hope to achieve.  It wasn’t a minute or so before I realised she was crying.  Then like a damn fool, I was crying too, and she pulled me in through the door and there was none of the awkwardness I’d been expecting since Arania suggested reuniting with her.  She sat me down at the table – still the same table, I realised as long-buried memories started coming back to me.  The furniture had been arranged differently, there were a few additions and some things had been taken away, but for the most part it could have come from my memories of it.  There was still a tiny stick-figure sketched onto one corner of the table, a doodle I’d done as a child discovering the magic of permanent ink that couldn’t simply be washed away.

I thought I’d finished crying, but seeing that little person on the table, knowing that she’d never gotten rid of the table because that picture was a reminder of me, it set me off again and that, of course, set her off.  We probably looked like two idiots sitting there at that table, sniffling over a malformed drawing, but I couldn’t care about that now.  This was my _mother._  

Finally, she brushed her hair back off her shoulders – still silvery, her eyes still black as coal but burning with an intensity that threatened to set me on fire – and wiped her face.  “Tell me _everything,_ ” she said, and the words started pouring out of me.


	6. Chapter 6

Several hours later, my throat was rough and sore, and we’d both been crying again, but I’d told her everything I could – everything, that is, except seeing Daemian and the indignity of having him carry my drunk ass home, and the air-razor.  She’d told me some of what she’d been up to, which wasn’t a whole lot.  She kept house for some of the wealthier people in Sublucida, and that paid her rent and bought the groceries.  She kept up a lively correspondence with Arania and Daunell, and had known for years that I was still alive and living nearby, but she told them to keep me ignorant of my family, since I’d walked out.  She just knew, she told me, that when I was ready to come back, I would – and I had. 

I was distracted by some of the photographs she had up on the wall.  Daunell and Arania, Lanzi, _me._   Some of the same photos I’d seen in Arania’s album had been blown up and framed here at my mother’s house. 

“We should have another family picture taken, with Arania and Daunell,” my mother said, standing beside me while I looked at them. 

“And Lanzi,” I said.  She smiled, and the expression seemed to light up her face from the inside.

“And Lanzi,” she agreed.  “And _you._   Arania tells me the reason this is the first time I’m seeing you is because you don’t hold still for pictures very well.” 

I shuffled in place.  “They take too long,” I hedged, but the real reason was because if I ever got into trouble, I didn’t want to leave anything lying around behind me.  And once I got to Luminesca, I didn’t want any reminders of Sublucida popping up. 

“They’re practically instantaneous,” my mother said, and I could barely believe what I was hearing – she hadn’t seen me in ten years or more, and now that she had me back, she was nagging on me! 

“One of them is,” I said, feeling argumentative.  I don’t know why, but something was pressing at the back of my head.  We _couldn’t_ have a family picture taken.  “But they never want to take just one.  They have to take fifty, and then you get to _choose_ one.”  I didn’t add that the choosing could take almost as long as the taking, and sometimes longer, because I felt that was evident.

“I want a recent picture of you, Ayden,” she said softly, and I realised I couldn’t deny her that.

“I’ll stand still for some pictures for you, but not anything else.”

It occurred to me what was missing from the house, and why it felt so empty. 

“Why not?”

“Mother, where’s Morgan?” I couldn’t call him my dad.  That wound was too raw.  I’d grown up believing him to be nothing but a guy who’d fucked my mother, and knowing he’d really cared about her, and on top of everything else, had been a _Luminor_ – it was too much to handle.  I wasn’t a half-breed, I was pure Luminescan blood.  But relations between Luminors and playtoys that lead to children were often… _discouraged._   I don’t know whose fancy word that was, but I knew extremely well – I’d been studying for years, so of course – that children between Pets and Luminors were aborted before they could be brought into the world.

I hadn’t been.  Maybe they hadn’t known.  Maybe they’d thought they were sterile.  It was another story I was going to have to get out of someone, at some point.  But I was worse than a half-breed, and I wanted to know where the rest of my blood was.

The look she gave me as soon as the words left my mouth chilled me to the bone.  “Luminesca,” she said finally.  Her voice was so quiet I had to strain to make sure I heard her correctly.

“The fuck is he doing there?”

The words tore out of my throat before I could get my brain in gear to stop them.  Then, once the damage had been done – I’d been doing _so well_ , remembering not to swear! – I swore again at having said ‘fuck’ in the first place. 

Instead of chastising me for my language, she just looked sad.  “We heard you wanted to go there,” she said.  “Then we didn’t hear anything about you for a long time, and he thought you had.  He went … oh, about six or seven months ago.  I haven’t heard from him since.”  She turned a piercing, agonised expression on me.  “I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead, and it’s been _hell_ worrying about the both of you. I’m so glad you came now,” and then she was crying again.  **(Revision note: the picture story says Morgan left shortly after Ayden, but in Clarys’ words she says it was more recent.  Change it to say that Morgan had been going to Luminesca on and off for years, for longer and longer periods of time.  Then more recently he vanished altogether.  No one in the story knows why, but the real reason will be that he’s been slowly taking over the underworld of Luminesca as the Lumin, and when he vanishes for good its because he takes over full time as the leader.)**

I gave her a hug.  “It’s not a family picture without him,” I said into her hair.  Her long, beautiful hair.  It was the only thing I’d remembered from my foggy childhood all my life, and now that I could look at it again, touch it and smell it and really _see_ it again, I never wanted to forget any details again.  Although her face was unlined, there were streaks in her hair where the lightness of her silver-blonde hair was turning grey.  I stared at them, wanting to memorise the way they looked.  I took a deep breath, and smelled vanilla.  It must have been the shampoo she used, but it was a good smell for her.  I inhaled again, wanting to memorise her smell as well as everything about the way she looked.  Something deep inside told me I was going away again, and this time I wasn’t going to be just across town. 

Deep inside, I knew I was going to Luminesca, one way or another. 

“You’ll find him,” she said at long last, and beneath my arms – I never thought of my mother as being small, because when you’re seven, everyone’s fucking _huge_ , but my hands almost dwarfed hers – I felt her shoulders shaking.  I could have set my chin on the top of her head only if I stooped down a little bit.  And I wasn’t that tall of a person.  She was just that short.  

“I’ll find him,” I promised her.  “And then we’ll all come back here and have a family picture taken with Arania, Daunell, and Lanzi.” 

She sobbed. 

Eventually, though, she calmed down enough to take a personal camera and get a great deal of pictures of me.  I chafed under the lens, uncomfortable and sure it would show on my face, but she seemed pleased with whatever results she got.  She even set the timer on it and got in a few of the pictures with me, and I liked those ones the best, because I could look at them, and look at the pictures of us together when I was little, and compare how much we’d both changed. 

I hugged her goodbye when I left, but I didn’t say the words.  Neither did she. 

I caught up with Daunell, sleeping in the aircar he’d rented.  “You can just go home,” I told him.  “It’s really not that much of a walk, and I think I need the exercise.”

He looked me up and down, and didn’t believe that for a second.  Fortunately, he didn’t guess the real reason I was walking.  “It’s a lot to take in,” he said.  “Especially with Morgan gone, too, she’s been in a bad way.  You’ll want to come down often, I expect, to see her.  Maybe she’ll drop by our house occasionally too.  Arania’s been trying to get her to come over since Morgan disappeared, but she just sits in that house all day.  I’m glad you came, son,” Daunell added, and my throat threatened to close up.  All my life, I’d waited to hear the word ‘son’ from a man’s lips, and when it came it was the wrong man.

But I didn’t grudge him the words.  He was more a father to me than Morgan ever had been.  I wondered why he’d gone to Luminesca to find me, when I’d lived in the same slum for the past decade, an hour’s walk away from the house.  I didn’t have any answers, but I would find Morgan, for my mother, and then I’d beat them out of him if I had to. 


	7. Chapter 7

I stopped by the little shack I’d shared for so long with Lanzi.  I hated to leave her, but I couldn’t risk getting caught at her parent’s house – Arania would want me to sit down, and talk, and then I’d be there forever, or until she made me go back to my mothers.  I remembered that the last things I’d said to Lanzi before I left had been “I fucking know.”  Because she’d been trying to help me.  I couldn’t find any paper, but I’d brought one of those permanent-ink styluses from my mother’s house, and a pretty villainous smirk seemed pasted on my face when I knelt down to use our squat table to leave the note.

 _Lanzi,_ I wrote.  _Please don’t hate me._ I stopped there for too long, wondering what I could say.  _I’ve gone to Luminesca at last, not to find my future but to find my father, Morgan.  He went missing because he went there looking for me.  I just found my mother.  I have to bring him back for her._

 _Don’t forget that I love you, Lanzi.  I’m sorry for everything I ever did wrong.  Fucking sorry, and I fucking love you, you bitch._   I laughed as I scrawled that out, and I knew that after she stopped crying she’d laugh for the rest of her life over that, even if I did get the smack of my life across the back of my head when I came back.

I didn’t think about the fact that Morgan had lived there his whole life, and he hadn’t come back. 

I didn’t think about the fact that I was an affront to all of their pretty rules, and that if my parents had stayed, I would never have been born. 

I didn’t think about what they’d do to me if they found out. 


	8. Chapter 8

It was easy to find the immigration building; it had a massive sign above it reading _“IMMIGRATION._ ”  I rolled my eyes and went in.  It was warm inside and tastefully decorated.  There were even flowers – real flowers – sitting on a table beneath a notice board.  There was no one else in the small room, so I went straight to the counter.

A burly looking guy stood there, staring at me with limpid brown eyes.  “Welcome to the Shadow Bridge between Luminesca and Sublucida,” he said, and the inflectionless words sounded rote.  I wondered how many times a day he said that to how many people applying for entrance into Luminesca. 

It wasn’t lost on me that I knew fifteen different ways into the upper City and not a single one of them involved actually walking up to the Luminors and telling them why I was coming in. 

“Please state your name, residence of origin, and reason for applying to cross the Bridge.”

“My name is Ayden,” I said.  “I come from Sublucida, and I need to get into Luminesca to find my father…s friend.”  I didn’t want to let on that I was something forbidden.  “He’s been missing for a few months, and my mother’s getting worried, and my dad would have come up here himself except he couldn’t get away from work that long.”

The stylus scratched against the page as he wrote down what I’d said, then he reached into a drawer and pulled out a tiny booklet.  “This is a guidebook to Luminesca.  This will explain all the sights tourists usually want to see, how to get there, and what lodgings are available in each sector.  It also outlines basic rules that you will need to follow.”  He fixed me with a beady stare.  I felt as though my Luminor blood must be singing through the air, and couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out yet just by looking at me.

“We will know whether or not you have followed these rules, _Ayden._ ”  Hearing my name out of his mouth gave me a shudder, which I hid behind a quick stretch.  Talk about unpleasant guards.  “As per the usual immigration rules, if you intend to stay more than six weeks as a tourist then you will need to be accepted into a home as an indentured servant.  This will teach you the rules and way of life – which can be a bit of a shock to those not born here,” and his chuckle was gruesome.  I almost didn’t hide the shudder again in time.  This guy gave me the fucking creeps.  “It will also allow for newcomers to build up some credit here, as you will be paid for your service.”

He pulled out another long paper, and started scanning the names.  “You’re too scrawny to be much of a Roadslave,” he muttered, glancing over me.  I bristled.  That was what I’d been hoping for.

“I may not look like much, sir,” I said.  “But I can do a lot of work.”

“I bet you can.”  The look he gave me was definitely a leer.  I kept my face still with effort.  “No one’s looking for a dark-haired Pet, or I’d give you into one of them.  Looks like you’ll have to deal with being a Housie.”  He ran the stylus down the page again, clucking his tongue.  “That is,” he said suddenly, startling me.  “If you intend to stay more than six weeks.  You never said.”

“I probably will,” I said, hoping he didn’t take me in.  I was prepared to deal with a lot, but this guy wasn’t on _my_ list.  “I don’t know how long I’ll be here, and it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?”

“True.”  He went back to perusing the list, looking for a suitable household to place me in.  Behind me, the door swung open with a gust.  The horrible guard looked up, and a bright smile drifted across his face.  I felt the blood drain out of my own and slowly brought myself to turn around.

“Luminor Daemian,” the guard said.  “You’ve been looking for a suitable Housie, haven’t you?”

Daemian – my mother’s old friend, the Luminor who’d rescued me from myself on the bridge – was the one being offered me as a slave for a month and a half.  The last time I’d seen him, I’d been descending into a black rage and thrown him out even after he’d brought me back to my house, drunk off my ass and right in the middle of a riot on this very same bridge.  He barely spared us a glance.  “Of course, Mormorran, you know I have.  That is the reason I’ve been in here every other day, or has your memory started going as well?”  He turned around and somehow didn’t see me.  Then I realised – I was a slave, for better or worse, until my time was up and I could move around freely.  Slaves weren’t worth the time it took to look at them.

Since everybody’s been looking at me my whole life, this was supremely disconcerting. 

“My memory’s as good as it ever was.  He just walked in, said he was looking for a friend of his father’s.  What did you say the name was?”

I nearly had to clap both hands over my mouth to keep from just blurting out the name.  “The family friend or my father?” I managed instead.

“The friend you’re looking for.  He would have come through here, maybe I can tell you where he went.  Give you a bit of a head start.”

“Morgan,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t because Daemian spun around and looked at me for the first time since coming in.

“You!”

I took a deep breath, and leaned my weight back on one foot.  “Me,” I said, a calm counterpoint to his sudden discomfiture.  I added a little wave just to piss him off.  Instead of blustering and stammering the way one of my boys would have – and I realised with a pang that I’d forgotten them, and then reminded myself that Lanzi would look out for them while I was here – he simply got cold.  His face settled into a frozen mask and his eyes became blank.  I suddenly realised that this was how I looked when the rages came over me.  I’d never actually seen myself, but Lanzi had described it perfectly, and I realised now why they scared her so much.  Seeing him like that brought out a similar response in me and my vision was turning crimson around the edges.

“Well, if you want him, just sign here,” Mormorran interrupted us.  I felt as though the floor had been ripped out from underneath me at the sound of his voice; I hadn’t been expecting it, and it just cut the rug from beneath the rage.  I staggered, nearly fell over, and then Daemian was beside me, stylus in hand. 

“I had better take him before he gets himself into trouble,” he muttered.

Mormorran glanced at me sharply, his eyes narrowed and one hand raking through his hair.  “Is he known for trouble?”

“No, no,” Daemian assured the guard.  “But I know his family, and they all grew up around here and made trouble for the Luminors when we were children.  I will keep him under control, so you do not have to worry.”

Daemian gave me the stylus and I carefully read the terms of the contract we were signing.  It said exactly what Mormorran had talked about, except wordier.  I nodded, and signed my name on the line beneath Daemian’s.  The guard added his signature to the witness line, and then I was officially welcomed into Luminesca as the temporary servant of one Luminor Daemian, who would use the month and a half of my time to teach me how to get by and give me a sort of launching pad.

In all the spying I’d done around here to get into Luminesca without anyone knowing, I’d never known about this aspect.  I realised that for once I’d been lucky in choosing to go this way; if I’d snuck in and someone asked who employed me, I’d have had no answer, and probably would have gotten myself thrown out of the city and banned from returning, at best.  This way I was totally legal.  It was actually kinda wonderful.  _I was standing in Luminesca._  

I stopped just on the other side of the bridge and looked around.  I took a deep breath, and stared hard at everything, wanting to memorise it.  If anyone ever asked me to draw my first look at Luminesca, I wanted to be able to recreate every detail. 

Instead of white-washed buildings and roads made of silver, it actually resembled a cleaner, more modern version of Sublucida, which was a little bit disappointing, but none of that mattered because I was _here._   The dream of a lifetime, fulfilled at last.  And sooner than I could imagine, I’d be out on these streets, looking for the man with the golden skin and eyes. 

“If you are quite through blocking traffic,” Daemian asked, and took me by the shoulder, directing me out of the middle of the road.  There was no traffic to speak of, but I took the warning about not gawking while standing the middle of the street.  It’s not something I would have done in Sublucida, because Sublucida was dangerous.  But the joy… the fierce, overwhelming _joy_ of being in Luminesca!  It was enough to get me drunk, and I hadn’t had a thing stronger than water in days. 

“I don’t quite understand what I’ll be doing,” I said after we’d walked for a while.  I gathered that most people walked here, since I saw very few aircars and almost no public transportations. 

“Cooking, cleaning, generally taking care of the house.  I do have a part-time cook, so that does not have to be yours if you do not know how,” Daemian offered.  “Mostly you will do whatever I cannot get around to when I am busy, and I will teach you what life is like here in the fabled city of Luminesca.”

I scowled.  “It’s not fabled if we’re walking through it.”

He smirked right back at me.  I could already tell I was going to spend much of the next month trying not to punch his stupid face in.  “What have you heard about Luminesca?”

“Everything’s white.”  It didn’t take any effort to bring up the mental picture of Luminesca that I’d carried around in my head since I was a child.  “White buildings, white clothes, white cars.  Silver streets and plants.  Just … it’s called the city of Lights for a reason, I thought, and I thought it would be bright.” 

He shook his head.  I could clearly see that almost nothing was white.  “It is known as the City of Lights because this is where Lumi resides,” Daemian said, and I nearly tripped over my feet.

“Lumi is a myth,” I said.

Daemian’s face turned several different shades of red, starting with pink until he was almost fuchsia.  I stopped walking, waiting to see if he was still breathing. 

“She most certainly is not,” he said finally, apparently regaining control of his functions.  “I will take you to meet her at some point once you have cleaned up.”

I felt a cold chill run up my back.  “Um,” I said, not entirely sure I wanted to actually _meet_ with the person/thing/entity that served as the ruler of the entire planet of Incandescia, as well as the goddess most people prayed to.  I was just a nobody, practically orphan street-rat from Sublucida. 

Then I remembered that my mother was a former Pet, and my father was a Luminor, and that in Luminesca, that was practically royalty.  Did that make _me_ practically royalty?  Having raised myself on the streets, by choice, it was exceedingly hard to think of myself like that.  I was still coming to grips with the fact that I really did have parents still, parents who loved me even though I’d broken their hearts and run away. 

“Do not be alarmed,” Daemian said in that stiff, formal way that was apparently normal for him.  I wondered if I could teach him a few things about relaxing every once in a while.  “You will be properly taken care of here, and I will allow no harm to come to you while you are under my protection.  Lumi is not at all frightening to behold, and often she makes herself quite beautiful for us when we must be in her presence.  So,” he said briskly, changing the subject.  “You claimed your reason for being here in Luminesca was to search for Morgan.  Is this the truth or did you just need something convenient to get by Mormorran?”

“It’s the truth,” I said, bristling.  He held up a hand to cut me off before I could say anything else.

“Very well,” he said, accepting it.  “Then I must ask you how you came to know of Morgan.”

So I told him about Arania, and how she and her husband had been friends of the family I’d never known I had.  “So it wasn’t a lie at all.  Arania and Daunell are practically my family, as well as my mother and Morgan, and Morgan is a friend of theirs, and my mother, she… well, she said he came here looking for me, and disappeared.  So I came here looking for him.”

“You still have not adequately explained to me what Morgan is to you, or why it is so imperative that you find him now.   I realise he may mean a great deal to your mother; we knew one another as children here, and I am sure you have heard that tale if you are as close to Daunell and Arania as you claim.  But a misplaced loyalty to a mother you have not seen in ten years is no reason to risk life and limb to find him for her.”

I stopped, staring at him.  _He didn’t know!_   “Morgan is my father,” I said defiantly.  I had the dubious pleasure of watching his face change again, this time becoming steadily paler until I was half-afraid he was going to fall over in a dead faint right there in the middle of the road. 

“Do not speak of this again until we are safe within my house!” he commanded me, and then grabbed me by the wrist and practically dragged me the rest of the way down the street. 


	9. Chapter 9

His house, what I could see of it, seemed to be in an apartment building.  He dragged me through the lobby, barely sparing a wave to the doormen, and didn’t bother to explain my presence to them when they called out curious questions.  Looking back, I saw the expressions on their faces and heard some of the jokes they passed around between themselves, and suddenly realised that they thought Daemian was dragging me up into his home to … to sleep with. 

Absolutely mortified, I tried to wrench my hand out of his, but his grip was like steel.  I’d have had better luck trying to break an aircar in half with my foot.  “Let me go!”

“Not until we are safe.  There is no telling what might happen…”

He hauled me into the elevator and as the doors slammed closed behind us, I saw his expression settle into one of muted rage.  I wondered if he was seeing crimson the same way I did, and if he would be able to explain to me what it was that was going on with me when that happened.  It seemed to be a Luminor thing. 

Countless floors later, the doors swung open again onto the biggest room I’d ever seen.  It easily could have fit the three-room shack Lanzi and I occasionally shared five times over, and that was just a single room.  It was sparsely decorated, generally tidy.  I wondered if he really lived here or if he just folded himself up in a box each night and kept the apartment for appearances.  I also wondered what in the hell he needed a servant for if the place looked – and felt – this unlived in.  Then I realised I was in a totally strange place, with a total stranger, and no way home.  Panic washed over me in waves until the edges of my vision turned red and I had to take long, deep breaths to keep myself from exploding into destructive action. 

“I want you to explain exactly why you are here, what you are looking for,” Daemian ordered me again.  He gestured to the couch when I looked around for a place to put myself, and feeling a little bit like an intruder, I sat down, and told him everything I’d learned in the past few weeks.

Arania and Daunell still kept in touch with my parents.  My father was not some nameless nobody who walked into my mother’s life long enough to get me on her and vanished, he had been Luminor Morgantran. 

As I talked, I watched Daemian’s face get more and more still, as though piece by piece he was turning into a statue.  Finally, he burst into a flurry of movement, throwing himself off the chair and into a wonderful pace across the room.  I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’d be living in this apartment for a few weeks, this massive apartment that _had_ the room for him to pace violently back and forth without touching anything. 

The first words out of Daemian’s mouth were: “You must never speak of this to anyone else.”

I thought once about arguing and asking why, but then I took in his expression and didn’t think twice.  “Okay,” I said, as neutrally as I could.  “I know,” I added, and the look on his face could have frozen oceans.  I stiffened my back and tried again.  “I know that unions between Pets and Luminors are taboo, and that usually … any children that derive from such a union are … aborted…”

“Or thrown in the Oubliette if not caught soon enough,” Daemian admitted, staring at me as though he was expecting another head to sprout from my shoulders.  I surged to my feet at that, glowering at him.

“What the fuck?  Why?”  I’d never heard anything but horror stories about the Oubliette, and if there was one place I would avoid going at all costs, that was it.  And they would just abandon _kids_ to it?  “Why not just throw them down into Sublucida with the rest of the trash?”

He flinched, and sat down again.  I envied him his long legs.  I’d seen more Luminors since coming to Luminesca than I previously had my whole life put together, and realised that being tall and lanky was just part of the package.  I stared at my legs while he arranged himself, and hated my body for having inherited my mother’s stature instead.  “The genetic enhancements,” he murmured. 

“The fucking whats?”  Lanzi would tear my head off if she heard me right now, but I didn’t care.  I wanted to know why the truth of my parentage had turned Daemian from a gentle tour guide into a raging maniac. 

“Luminors and Pets and perhaps ninety five percent of the rest of the population of Luminesca are not ‘naturally born’,” Daemian clarified.  “They are genetically manipulated before birth into being the perfect whatever.  The perfect toy, the perfect maid, the perfect soldier.  This is not just in how we are raised, it is in our genes.  Those genes are then passed down to any children born naturally, but because natural birth is somewhat unnatural in Luminesca, the undesirable traits are removed at the genetic level before the child even becomes a fetus.”

All this told me diddly squat.  “You’re still not making sense.”

“The Pets like Arania, Daunell, and your mother are genetically incapable of being anything but kind and docile,” Daemian spat.  I remembered Daunell wrestling me to the ground when they told me they knew about the air razor and snorted, but I didn’t say anything to contradict him.  “The Luminors are created to be soldiers, weapons, guards.  The mingling blood and genes of Pets and Luminors creates highly … unstable children.  They are a danger to themselves and others.  They are taken to the Oubliette where they can be safely contained until they destroy themselves.”

“That’s barbaric!”

“That is the best we can offer for them!” Daemian roared back.  He settled back into his seat, hanging his head in his hands.  “They are unstable, Ayden.  Mentally.  They are a danger to themselves and the other people around them, and they are confined for their own good.  None of them live beyond their fifth or sixth birthday, anyway.  Their conflicting urges – be docile, compliant, and servile at the same time they are designed to be violent and in command – they tear their own minds apart and in their madness they begin to tear at their bodies.  It is a horrible thing to witness, Ayden, and you should pray you never see it yourself.”

“This happens every single time, does it?” I asked, trying to mitigate the horror of the images he was presenting me with. 

“Without fail,” he assured me.

“Then how the fuck do you explain me?”   I felt like a door had opened up in my mind – so much was explained!  My mother’s pet genes and my father’s Luminor genes mingled in my body and turned me into the mess that I was.  But Daemian said that all of the other children like me – and for a moment, my throat felt like it was closing around an inexplicable grief, that all those other kids had gone crazy and destroyed themselves – no wonder it was against the rules! – but I swallowed around it and let it go.  If I was the only one in the world who’d survived, then how the fuck had I done it?

I seemed to have stumped him for the moment, however, and my lapses hadn’t been noticed.  He was staring into space, his lips moving around words I couldn’t make out.  Finally, I saw his eyes pull into focus and see me again.  “Perhaps,” he murmured.  “I have seen you beginning the slide; tell me, Ayden, which do you respond to?”  And with that baffling statement he got up and towered over me.  “Perhaps you are lying to me.  Perhaps your mother was just some common street whore, and Morgan was your father.” 

It took a moment, but then I realised what he was saying and the red curtain fell over my sight.  “You fucking take that back you son of a bitch,” I said, ready to do murder.  He fell back, retreating a couple steps. 

“I thought so.  Do you often have these fits?”

I blinked back the haze with an effort.  “You did that on purpose,” I snarled, and my temper was riding high. 

“I wanted to see.  Those tempers you have, they are a product of your father’s Luminor blood.  But there is the other…” He changed subtly.  Instead of just standing there, suddenly he was looming.  He looked imposing, and powerful.  “Ayden,” he said, and even the timbre of his voice had changed.  “Sit back down, Ayden, and cease this foolishness.”

Against my will, I found myself back on the couch.  Deep inside – the same place, I could vaguely tell, that my rages came from – was a tiny voice compelling obedience.  I would have done anything for him in that moment, provided he didn’t make any more disparaging remarks about my mother.  I didn’t know her that well, but I knew enough.  “How the fuck did you do that?”

He sat back down, no longer a threat or – or – and I didn’t want to think about that any more, didn’t want to consider how easily just the sound of his voice brought me under his control.  That was something about myself I’d never known, and I wanted a little bit of time to assimilate it.  He didn’t answer right away, looking at me instead with awestruck eyes.  “You are a miracle,” he said.  I wrinkled my nose.  I was still dirty and my clothes were torn and I probably needed a shave… hardly anyone’s idea of a miracle. 

“And you’re insane,” I cheerfully informed him. He just shook his head.

“They cannot find out about you,” he said suddenly.  “You would be locked in a laboratory for the rest of your life, and I think that would drive you mad.  Perhaps…” his eyes drifted off of me, and I left him to the privacy of his thoughts.  Unfortunately, he didn’t keep them private.  “Perhaps if those other children had been allowed to live and not locked away for their own safety, they might have survived, as you did.  But there was never a documented case before of the child… and I don’t understand, even if left alone, the madness took them…”

I shifted uncomfortably on my seat, able to follow it all too well.  He thought the children they’d locked up or killed, the other kids who’d been like me – the unfortunate products of a liaison between a Pet and a Luminor – might have survived if they _hadn’t_ been locked up.  I’m pretty sure I would have gone crazy, myself, if I’d been forced to look at the same four walls day in and day out.  I wonder if that was what contributed to my restlessness; I hadn’t been able to stay with my parents, and now that I was so close to my childhood, had been back in the home I’d grown up in, I recalled a faint sense of being trapped.  That was why I’d left…  I didn’t want to be stuck there, and I knew I might have been.  It might have driven me insane.

But I got out.  I got out and I wandered the streets for five years before Lanzi caught up with me and took me to the shack, and whenever I started getting restless there – somehow, she must have known – there was so much I wanted to ask her! – she took me to her parent’s house, a change of scenery and some new people, always something new. 

“I think,” I started, and shrank back into the cushions at the rage-filled glance he shot me before he got himself under control.  I envied him the ease with which he did it, but then realised that he’d been raised to expect it, and probably taught how to deal with it.  I just had it, and had to make do with what I knew. 

“My apologies,” he said politely.  “Continue?”

I cleared my throat, and tried to remember all the fights I’d won on the streets.  I couldn’t understand why a single look from him sent me flying like a scared kid.  Finally finding some of my backbone, I sat up straighter.  “I think I might have stayed –” _sane_ “ –alive because I never let myself get stuck anywhere.”

He frowned for a moment, and then snatched up a pad of paper and a stylus.   He scribbled furiously for a few minutes, and then looked back up at me.  “Stuck anywhere?”

I rolled my eyes, but silently agreed to the interview.  “Alright, when I was about six or seven – right around the age you said those kids started going insane, right? – I started getting…restless.  I ran away from home.”

“You fair broke your mother’s heart,” Daemian muttered.  I looked at him, startled. 

“I didn’t know you were still in touch with her,” I said without meaning to.

He shrugged inelegantly.  “She was my best friend for many years,” he said.  “Of course I kept up with her.”

So many secrets!  “Anyway, so I ran away from home and started living on the streets.  But then I met up with Lanzi again, and she started taking care of me.  I don’t know how she knew, and I only just realised that she must have known _something_ all along that she never told me about, because every time I started feeling that restlessness again, she’d pack us up and move us somewhere.  Sometimes we went back to her parent’s house and stayed with them.  Sometimes with friends.  But always somewhere new, and as soon as we did, the restlessness went away.  I think maybe that had something to do with it…”

He nodded, accepting this.  “The children would have been kept in cells or small rooms, and the need to be away would have destroyed them.  I understand,” he said, and the dawning comprehension in his eyes was almost beautiful.  “As to how she knew, well… both of her parents were Pets, Ayden.  Pet blood mingles more gracefully than Pet and Luminor, since there are no conflicting urges.  And Pets were originally created as companions for Luminors, though it has recently become fashionable for everyone to have one around for entertainment.  Naturally, therefore, the Pets are more attuned to the moods and desires of the Luminors, and somewhere subconsciously, she with her Pet status was responding to your Luminor blood.” 

I found this highly bizarre, that we were both being ruled by unnatural genes and urges and compulsions.  I’d always been my own person, with my own mind.  Not a fucking _pet_ and I clearly wasn’t a Luminor.  Bleakly, I realised that I’d never be either.  Even if I wanted to be, I was too vicious to be a real Pet, and too – what had his word been? – _docile_ to be a Luminor.  I eyed his legs again.  Not to mention too short. 

He was writing something onto that pad of paper again, and I ignored him in favour of glancing around the apartment.  It didn’t get any more interesting on the second look. 

“I expect I will be some time at figuring this out,” Daemian said suddenly, startling me.  He was using his Luminor voice again, and a part of me I’d never known existed until tonight reveled in the power he was displaying.  I hated it. “Feel free to avail yourself of the facilities.  There should be clothing in the closet of the spare room that might fit.  I will send for more clothing in the morning, as well as begin teaching you your duties both as a visitor to Luminesca and a member of my household.”  His severe expression was broken by the quirk of his lips.  “Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” I said, and wanted to spit to get the taste of the words out of my mouth.  The quirk turned into a full blown grin.

“I promise not to take advantage of you,” he said, and there was a note of teasing in his voice.  I found I preferred it to every other tone he’d used tonight.  It made him seem like more of an older brother, or a beloved uncle.  Not a terrifying Luminor or a blood-chilling _master._   Just a member of the family.  Daunell might have talked to me like that.  If he knew.

As I made my way into the room he indicated, I wondered if Daunell and Arania _did_ know.  Obviously my mother knew, and part of the reason she’d been so happy to see me wasn’t just because I was alive but also _sane?_   Reviewing the memory as I stripped to bathe, I realised this was probably the case.  In light of everything Daemian had revealed, I wondered how much of their fear for me – Morgan’s sudden flight to Luminesca to find me after so many years of leaving me alone – had been fear that my genes had finally twisted me into madness. 

It was a reasonable thing to be afraid of.  If I knew someone was genetically predisposed to go around the twist, I’d always be watching them for signs of it.  Then I felt guilty, because I kept wondering how much of Lanzi’s sisterly affection was orders by her parents to keep an eye on me. 

Just in case.


	10. Chapter 10

I still didn’t understand what Daemian needed a Housie for, even after several weeks in his house.  He seemed perfectly capable of taking care of his own things, and the girl who came in and cooked – a former Pet who’d bought her freedom and now earned her living by taking care of people, just like my mother – certainly didn’t need my help.  Unfortunately, aside from the odd spare moment he found to help me figure out where to begin looking for Morgan, and the more frequent but still sparse time he spent lecturing me on proper behaviour in Luminesca, he was insanely busy.  Luminors were coming from all over Incandescia to meet with Lumi for some festival they celebrated in her honour.

I still hadn’t been brought in front of her – I was pretty sure the shock of my parentage had driven the idea straight out of Daemian’s mind – but I wasn’t going to make a fuss over that, of all things.  I did some silent griping about the clothes he insisted I wear; just one of the buttons on one of the shirts he’d acquired for me, if sold to the right shop in Sublucida, would be enough to pay the rent on the shack and buy the groceries for Lanzi and I – and probably Mikki, Rend, and Shiv as well – for the next six months. 

But he just gave me the shirt, and made me _wear_ it.  I’d never even _seen_ such fancy clothes, much less dressed up in them.  I felt like a complete fool, and I was just glad that none of my old crew was around to see me dressing up like a Pet. 

So I took care of his household, and he taught me about Luminesca, and it wasn’t until I’d been there about a month that we had any other sort of serious conversation. 

I’d been washing down his walls; they didn’t get too bad, but some of his friends smoked little cylinders of herbs and they left a nasty smell behind that neither of us could stand.  So I took a bucket of scented water and was wiping them down when Daemian and two or three of his friends came back into the house.  I was basically furniture at this point; nobody paid me much attention, something I was glad about. I was nearly done with the wall, and I didn’t want to be interrupted halfway through in case the water dried in streaks.  Pushing my hair out of my face, I had to smile. 

A month and a half ago, I was running the streets of Sublucida, parentless, and living in a shack.  Now I was in this huge house, wearing clothes I’d never even _seen_ before, and worried about streaks.   Lanzi would laugh if she could see me, and I missed her suddenly with a pang that was physical.  With half an ear, I listened to the conversation going on around me.  It had become a habit, just like worrying about the streaks and the dust, but I didn’t want to be smacked or yelled at if they called for me and I didn’t hear them.  That had happened a few times in the beginning, and at first it galled.  My Luminor heritage had served to make me a leader in the slums of Sublucida, but here in Luminesca – surrounded by Luminors at all times – it was the Pet side of me that was becoming dominant, and although I secretly hated it, I hated being chastised even more.  Especially since the yelling or hitting usually made me feel like a little kid, made me want to drop down to the ground and beg forgiveness.  That wasn’t like me, and I felt like I was becoming a stranger to myself every time they got their dominance up.

As I listened to the group – Daemian, Katiora, and a man I was rapidly coming to despise, Mathiru – talk, I overheard their conversation turn around to Pets.  Since I figured this would be a good way to learn more about my friends and family – most of my crew were related to former Pets by one or two generations, and of course Arania, Lanzi, and my mother – I listened to them.

“I wish there was some way to give him a bit more of a spine,” Katiora said.  Mathiru took a long drag on the cigarette he was smoking, and I scowled; it was his fault I was here trying to scrub the smell out of the walls from the _last_ time he was here. 

“Pets don’t need spines, dearest,” Mathiru said, exhaling more of that horrible smoke.  “That’s why they need Luminors, to keep them under control and tell them what to do.”

Katiora sighed.  “I don’t have time to be running after him after every little thing.  If he could just figure it out for himself…”  She trailed off wistfully.  Katiora was a source of endless amusement for me; she was the first female Luminor I’d ever seen – ever even _heard_ of – and while she was butch enough to knock back a couple of strong drinks with the boys, she was also feminine and delicate, wearing dresses instead of trousers.  She kinda reminded me of myself, with the mixed signals she kept sending, and I hoped that once I became a free agent in Luminesca I could get over to her house and talk to her a bit more.  Daemian had forbidden me from ever mentioning that I was the product of a Pet and a Luminor, but I thought maybe I could say enough to ask what I wanted to know without giving the game away.  “Like your lovely new addition, Daemian.  Wherever did you find him?”

I realised she was talking about me, and went to scrubbing the wall with a vengeance, hoping that my face wasn’t as red as it felt. 

“Ayden is here on indenture, serving his time in my household in order to spend some time in Luminesca,” Daemian said, using the Luminor voice that alternately set my teeth on edge and made me want to fall at his feet.  “Ayden, come here and introduce yourself to our friends,” he added, and I had no choice.  I dropped the sponge into the bucket, dried my hands on a towel – a month ago, I might have used my pants, but the first time Daemian caught me doing that he nearly hit me for it, and it didn’t take long for _that_ lesson to sink in. 

“Hello,” I said, and gave the two Luminors a slight bow.  “My name is Ayden, and it is a pleasure to meet you all.”

Katiora giggled.  “Very well trained,” she said to Daemian.  “Almost like a Pet.  Tell me darling,” and her attention swung back to me.  “Have you considered staying on as a Pet for our darling Daemian?  Lumi knows he could use one,” she added under her breath.  I clenched my teeth against the tidal wave that threatened to overwhelm me. 

“No, mistress,” I said, tense.  “I’m not… I don’t …”  I couldn’t think of a way to say it.  Daemian would be highly upset if I resorted to swearing and scowling – after years of trying, Lanzi would probably set up a shrine in Daemian’s honour for his work in getting me to stop swearing – and I couldn’t think of a way to say that I would _never_ be a pet, not for her, not for Daemian, not for Lumi herself.  “Being a Pet,” I said finally.  “It’s not for me.”

“A real pity,” she said, and I froze as I realised she had the Luminor voice too, that inbred tone of command, and that even coming from a woman it had power over me.  My legs felt like they were turning to water, and I knew she’d seen enough Pets in her day to recognise it if I gave in.  She’d just been complaining that her own wasn’t strong enough for her.  I briefly wondered what the poor fellow had to do.  “Your mother was a Pet, wasn’t she darling?”

I felt like I was drowning in the blue of her eyes.  I couldn’t look away, even though it was horribly rude.  I used that steely blue gaze to hold myself upright, fearing that any moment I would just fall apart on the carpet at their feet.  I couldn’t even look at Daemian, couldn’t get the message across that he needed to help me.  “Yes mistress,” I said, and inside the baggy sleeves of my shirt I felt my hands close into fists. 

“What was her name?”

There was no chance for me to resist.  “Clarianne,” I said, hating her suddenly for that effortless command.  I felt my knees begin to buckle as she held me pinioned beneath her eyes, and I knew that in a moment I was going to make a total fool of myself and Pet-out, and then I was saved from the most unlikely of places.

Mathiru surged to his feet.  “Clarianne,” he said sharply, and my attention snapped onto him.  He was making the slide into rage; I could see it on his face.  Luckily for me, the answering slide in me helped me overcome the weakness Katiora had brought to the surface.  “Clarianne was your mother?”  He grabbed my chin and forced my head up so he could look into my face.  He towered over me – he towered over even Daemian – and the angle was uncomfortable.  I tried to keep myself from sliding, using all the techniques Daemian had taught me about keeping calm except when the slide was necessary, praying to Lumi and all the Lights that he didn’t notice. 

“How could I have missed it,” Mathiru muttered releasing me with a violent shove that sent me tumbling backwards.  Daemian caught me before I actually hit the floor, but I was only a couple inches away from it, and the slide got away from my control.

“You have something to say about my mother?”

Something flickered in Mathiru’s eyes.  I hated that man with everything I had, and I suddenly realised that his face had been so familiar because he’d been the Luminor Arania hated, the one who’d owned my mother.  Daemian pushed me back up onto my feet, and I felt the warning in his hands even if there was nothing in his carefully blank face, even if he didn’t dare speak to me with Mathiru looming over both of us. 

“She was mine, once,” Mathiru said with the Luminor voice that I so hated out of all of them but most of all him because I couldn’t stand the sight of his _face_ … “She was the most beautiful person I’d ever laid eyes on,” he added, stalking around me.  I held myself stiff, refusing to bend to his game.  I felt weak again, wished Daemian could dismiss me so I could get away and get myself back from under these conflicting urges.  _Kill submit destroy succumb_ – it was like a strobe light in my mind, each flash a different impulse.  I felt like I was drowning beneath them all.  Katiora and Daemian sat back, watching Mathiru circle me like a predator.  I was aware, peripherally, of Daemian’s tenseness, the coiled energy in his languid-looking limbs that said he was prepared to fight Mathiru over me if this went on too much longer.  But for now, he was going to wait, and see what happened.  Katiora was pleased; I was pretty sure that if she’d been capable of it, she might have been purring in satisfaction.  This was what she wanted out of her Pet, then; my defiance and refusal to just bend in front of the all-powerful Luminor were what she’d been looking for and not finding.  I was sincerely glad I wasn’t in either of their houses. 

“She was also the best fuck I ever had,” Mathiru said, his voice low and almost sensual.  Red blanketed my vision, and the next second was a total blur.  I don’t know what I said, if I managed anything.  I don’t know if I lunged at him or if he saw me going for him before I moved and acted pre-emptively. 

The next thing I was aware of, he had his hands around my neck and I was lying on the floor beneath him.  He wasn’t squeezing; he wasn’t trying to kill me, though I would have murdered him right where he stood for his insult, he was just holding me down – asserting his power. 

“Mathiru!” I rarely heard Daemian raise his voice, but he was shouting now.  “Let him go!”

The rage receded, too late – I knew Mathiru had seen and recognised the change.  A peculiar, languorous heat suffused me, and I felt that limbs-to-water sensation again, going limp underneath him against my will.  He recognised that, too, though I could see it in his face that he didn’t know why.  I prayed fervently that that he never put the two together, never realised what I was.  He knew my mother was a Pet; she’d been _his,_ his plaything, his fucktoy.  I saw in my mind what they must have looked like, he with his dark hair mingling with her silver, ethereal mane.  Nausea welled up inside at the visual, and for a moment I almost wished I could puke up the contents of my stomach right in his face.  But I didn’t want to mess up Daemian’s floor, and I knew I’d be the one cleaning it up if I did, and I repressed the urge. 

“Pets always breed true,” Mathiru sneered, releasing me just before Daemian might have leapt on him.  He wiped his hands on his trousers, as though touching me had dirtied him.  I lay on the ground where he’d left me, trying to get the willpower back to get up.  I felt like my bones had been turned to jelly, my muscles to water.  I _couldn’t do it._   I lay there, telling myself to fucking _get up, get away_ , and my body refused to listen to me.  A Luminor – a _master –_ had put me on the floor, and that’s where I was going to stay until someone told me to get up.  I _detested_ this weakness. 

“Ayden,” Daemian snapped.  I jumped; he’d never talked to me like that before.  Instincts I didn’t know I had overwhelmed me, and shame flooded me as I realised I had displeased the master.  “Get up, and go to your room!” 

Like a kicked dog, I rolled to my feet and hurried from the room.  Locking the bedroom door behind me, I slumped against it and sank back down to the floor, trembling.  _Pets always breed true_ echoed in my mind.  I was what my parents had made me.

Through the door, I heard Mathiru and Daemian arguing about the way Mathiru had reacted. 

“He’s just a servant, Dae,” Mathiru said, and to my profound relief the undertone of mastery had gone from his voice.  This was a master speaking on equal terms with another master.  “You can’t get mad about that.”

“I am not mad,” Daemian said, and the undertone _was_ present in his voice.  He was exceptionally unhappy. “I’m _furious._   You are my friend, Mathiru, and I do not want to fight with you over a servant.  But this is my house, and he is _my_ servant, and you had no right to goad him into nearly attacking you.  You know what would have happened to him if you had, and I do not want to have everything he has worked for the past month to be undone by a mistake that was not even his!”

I could have kissed Daemian in that moment.  He didn’t give anything away, but his show of support was extremely welcome.  We’d never be _equals_ , but I hoped, after my mission was done, we could be something like friends.  Lumi knew that with friends like Mathiru and that twit Katiora, he could use some new ones. 

“Oh?  What is he working for?”

“He is looking for a friend of his family, a Luminor they have not seen in several months and are worried about.  Morgantran.  You remember him, do you not?” 

“I…do.”  There was something uncanny in Mathiru’s voice.  “As I recall, he was exceptionally interested in Clarianne when she was mine.  He offered to buy her several times, but I didn’t want to let her go until I had to.  I’m glad to hear that they remained friends after she earned her freedom.  Living in that trashheap they call Sublucida, it pleases me to hear that she had some worthy friends.  Very well, Daemian.  I apologise for the display in your house.  I will keep an ear out for news of our dear Morgan, and pass on anything I hear.  Will that suffice?”

“Very well, thank you.” 

I heard footsteps passing my room, and cowered away from the door in case Mathiru got any more ideas.  They just  kept going, however, and I heard the front door open and close as that bastard let himself out. 

“I apologise, as well, Kati,” Daemian said to his other guest. 

She giggled.  “Oh, _no_ , Daemi, don’t apologise for that.  That was wonderful.  Very entertaining, though I believe you’ll want to check on your little pet-slave to make sure he’s still breathing after that kind of a shock.”  She simpered.  “I understand that standing up to one of us as he did, and inciting the rage, it can be somewhat devastating for the little darlings, especially if they’re not properly prepared.”

There was something I didn’t like about her voice, either, but there was nothing definite.  I resolved to ask Daemian as soon as she was gone, and then pressed my ear back against the door to listen. 

“I will make sure he is unharmed, Kati, thank you for your concern.  Though I would remind you that although his mother was Mathiru’s pet for many years, he himself is _not_ a pet, simply a half-breed who has found employ in my household.”

For some reason – and even though I’d described myself that way plenty of times – hearing him refer to me so dismissively hurt.  I took a deep breath, pushing it away for now.  I’d think about it later; there was too much to consider. 

“A shame, really,” Katiora said.  “I believe he’d make a _fantastic_ pet.  Did you see the look in his eyes when he challenged Mat?”  She made a pleased sound in her throat.  “I think I may have to go and change my trousers.  Or perhaps I’ll just bring Cordian over here to take some lessons from him.  Ooh, if Cory looked at me like that …” She trailed off, and I was glad I couldn’t see the expression on her face.

Daemian said something else to her, and then the door opened and shut again as he let her out.  The apartment was silent for a moment, and then I heard the footsteps coming towards my room.  I quickly unlocked the door, turned the light on, and retreated to the bed.  A second later, Daemian knocked on the door.

“Come in,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t catch.  I was still trying to assimilate everything, and I felt suddenly nervous about having him in my bedroom. 

The door swung open, and Daemian stood there, not quite glowering, and every inch the powerful Luminor.  My mouth went dry in fear or …something else, I didn’t know.  It took everything I had to keep from throwing myself at his feet.  I _hated_ this!

“Are you unharmed?” And then the Luminor was gone from him, and he was just Daemian again.

“Um,” I said.  I didn’t know if I was willing to share the psychological trauma of being reversed like that.  “I guess so,” I said finally, realising he was waiting for an actual answer.  “He didn’t hurt me,” I added, and thought _as if he could._  

Daemian let out a sigh.  “I’m glad,” he said, and I had to smile to myself.  I’d been teaching him to be more relaxed in the way he talked, and it was making him easier to get along with.  “I’ll try not to let him come back while you’re here,” he said.  “I don’t like the way he was looking at you, and I don’t trust him not to overstep his bounds.”

“Thank you,” I said fervently.  He gave me an odd smile.

“Ayden, this may be a bit of a…personal question, but it’s something that needs to be discussed, considering tonight’s …confrontation.”

I waited, watching him.  He sighed again, and began pacing.  I drew my knees up to my chest.  The only time I saw him pacing was when he had something heavy on his mind. 

“There’s no delicate way to begin this,” he said, then burst out: “Ayden, are you a virgin?”

“Bwah?”  My mouth fell open, and for a long moment all I could do was gape at him like an idiot.  “What kind of a question is that?”

“Luminesca,” he said, inexplicably.  “Its entire economy is based around unions.  The unions of pets, the unions of Luminors, and others.  Katiora would never engender a child with her Pet Cordian, but I have no doubt that she went back to her apartment and –” he made an awkward gesture with his hands.  I understood immediately.  When he said _unions_ he was making a euphemism for _sex!_   My mouth hung open further.  This, I realised, was what it must be like to have a father.  And that awkward conversation Lanzi had told me about with her parents about preventing things like pregnancy and diseases. 

“By the lights,” I said, thunderstruck.  Daemian looked about how I felt. 

“I see you understand,” he said.  “To be… _inexperienced_ in Luminesca is almost unheard of.  Children born here – particularly if they are of any class – undertake a ritual at the age of thirteen.”  He placed his head in his hands.  “I cannot believe I am saying this,” he muttered.

“I can’t believe I’m _hearing_ it,” I shot back, flabbergasted. 

“Is there any,” Daemian said clumsily, and then tried again.  “Were there no suitable… prospects in Sublucida?”

“What?”

He looked pained.  “Are you _saving_ yourself for anything?  A ritual, a marriage?”

“What?”  Then I got it.  “By the lights, _no!_ ”

I was pretty sure my face was bright red right now.  As horribly embarrassed as I was, though, I felt a little bubble of happiness underneath the mortification.  Right now, I wasn’t a Pet, I wasn’t a Luminor, I wasn’t a half-breed orphan – I was just a teenaged boy having an awkward conversation with a parental figure.  It felt… _normal._   It made me happy. 

I’d have died before admitting it, though.

Daemian muttered.  “I suggest,” he said.  “It might.  You could.”  I’d never heard him so at a loss for words before.  “If you wish,” he tried again, taking a deep breath.  “An auction of – of yourself, it would raise the money you need to set yourself up comfortably here.  Give you the time you need to find Morgan, and you could bring your friend Lanzi here as well.  I would not,” he added, and for a moment he sounded normal, “suggest bringing the rest of them – Mikki, Shiv, and …?”

“Rend,” I added for him.

“Yes, Mikki, Shiv, and Rend here.  They might not feel… welcome.”  Mikki, Shiv, and Rend, my crew along with Lanzi, were half-breeds born to half-breeds, and could trace their family tree back at least three or four generations in Sublucida.  They’d never be at home in Luminesca, and had no desire to come here. 

Hearing my friends’ names out of the mouth of a Luminor might have terrified the living shit out of me at one point, but now it was a welcome diversion to think about them instead of what he was proposing. 

“You have two weeks left in my house, and I have given you a sizeable portion in addition to the wages you’ve earned, but it will not be enough if you do not find some… outside source.  You probably could not remain on as a servant in a house, if you wanted to have the freedom of movement and time to find Morgan.” 

It took me a moment to catch up to where he was going with that.  “Brightly lit,” I swore gently.  “You really… I –”

I couldn’t just think of selling myself that way.  I knew it was exactly the right thing to do; I’d seen one of those auctions before, and the woman who’d been selling herself earned not only a huge amount of credit but also the respect of the community she lived in, but me.  _Me!_    I’d never thought about sex.  Not like Mikki and Shiv, anyway.  They were constantly talking about where they were getting it, who they were getting it from, and occasionally, when they got bored, used my house to get it from each other or Rendara if it’d been too long between outside lovers.  I never saw Lanzi with any of her partners, but I knew she had them.  For me, it wasn’t… important. 

It made me think of my mother.  She’d been a sex-slave basically, to _Mathiru,_ before I was born.  I didn’t want to be like that.  Made for someone else’s pleasure.  And I couldn’t imagine taking someone made for pleasure that way.  If I spent the rest of my life in Luminesca, I doubted I’d ever own Pets.  But then I thought about one of the first things Daemian told me, and I recalled Mathiru’s horrible words.    _Pets always breed true._

I could deny it all I wanted, but I _had_ been made for someone else’s pleasure.  My mother’s genes – she had been _built_ for it, from the ground up, and she’d passed those building blocks onto me.  I took a deep breath. It was just my body.  It was just _sex_.  It didn’t matter, and I knew it’d be good, and it would set me up for years here in Luminesca. 

“I’ll do it,” I said, and surprised myself.  I’d been intending to say ‘I’ll think about it.’ 

Daemian looked as started as I felt.  “Very well,” he said.  “I have some books you may want to read.  I’ll collect them for you, and you can take the rest of the day off if you’d like.”

“Not today,” I said.  “That damn Mathiru left his stinking smoke all over the walls again, and if I don’t get back to them they’ll streak and stain.”

Daemian looked at me for a moment, and then threw his head back and laughed.  “Oh, Ayden,” he said.  “If you ever go back, Lumi help your friends.”

I didn’t understand what he meant, but he refused to explain it and simply left, still laughing.  He was _still_ chuckling when he dropped the promised books off in my room, and then he left the apartment altogether, and left me with a stack of books about auctions and sex, and walls that needed to be washed again.  I scowled at them all, and went to work on the walls.


	11. Chapter 11

The books were interesting, once I got past the initial embarrassment of having to read them in the first place.  The auctions were simple, and since I wouldn’t be the one handling it in the first place I didn’t need to worry about anything except getting up on the podium and being pretty and appealing.  The more money I raised from this initial auction, the better off I’d be in the future. 

When I’d finished the auction book, I picked up the next one in the stack.  It was tiny, and labeled “Your Sexuality and You.”  It may have been written in a different language for all I understood what it was talking about, and so with no other alternative, I just cracked it open and started reading. 

The very first line was “Are you a man or a woman?  Do you find yourself attracted to men or women?  These are very important questions, because if you are a man attracted to other men, then a woman will be supremely displeasing to you.  If you don’t know, then you’ve come to the right place.  By asking yourself a series of questions, we will be able to determine the gender you require to derive the greatest experience and pleasure from each and every sexual encounter you have during your life.”

I put the book down after that.  I didn’t want to read any more just yet, but it had already posed some interesting questions.  I recalled that Daemian preferred men.  Did that mean he slept with other guys?  Did he want to sleep with me?  The better question here was, did I want to sleep with _him?_

I was stumped.  I knew that if he commanded me to in the right tone of voice, I would have done anything for him.  But that wasn’t personal; that was because my mother was a Pet.  If Katiora commanded me, I’d do the same for her.  Self-inspection wasn’t getting me anywhere, and I picked up the book and continued reading. 

An hour later, I put it back down again.  It explained – in great technical detail – what best pleased both men and women, physically.  At each turn of the page, it was stressing that different people had different tastes, and I thought of Katiora and Mathiru.  Mathiru was happiest today when I was underneath him, submitting.  But Kati wanted her Pet to stand up to her a little bit, and I’d turned her on by standing up to Mathiru the way I had.  Looking at them with new eyes, I wondered how anyone got anything done with all this shit floating around in their minds.  I kept reading.

 

I barely heard the front door open when Daemian returned, and it wasn’t until I noticed he was blocking the light in the doorway that I realised he was home.  “Welcome back,” I said, and he gifted me with a warm smile.

“I will miss having you here when you go,” he admitted, and came and sat down beside me on the bed.  With all sorts of sexual things floating around in my head, I immediately thought of all the implications present in such a simple gesture.  That was ridiculous, of course; he’d sat on my bed plenty of times, and nothing sexual had ever come of it.  I wasn’t here to be his Pet, I was here to be his housekeeper, and I was doing a good job.  But I couldn’t _help_ it. 

“I think I’ll miss you, too,” I said, and as the words came out I realised I meant them.  I _would_ miss him.  It was like having a father, or an uncle, something I’d missed out on my whole life.  For a moment I regretted that I’d taken to the streets, but then my hindbrain reminded me that if I’d stayed, I’d have gone insane and killed myself and possibly others.  Being born in Sublucida had given me the freedom to save my own life. 

“Daemian,” I said, interrupting his perusal of the books.  I’d gone through most of the stack, and the read-pile was higher than the to-be-read-pile.  “Arania said you prefer men.  I saw today that Mathiru… well, it excited him to dominate me, and Katiora was excited by the way I stood up to him.  What excites you?”

He choked.  “By the lights of Lumi, Ayden, don’t just come out with something like that!” he said when he’d recovered. I scowled.  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, then frowned.  “It’s been a long time since I had a lover or a Pet, Ayden.  I couldn’t tell you.” He paused.  “You’re not…”

“No,” I said, getting the gist of his thought.  Not with him! He was like family!  “I’m just curious.  How do you find out what you like?”

He looked uncomfortable.  “You try a lot of things,” he said finally.  “When you find something you don’t like, don’t do it again.”

I considered this.  I was going to have to be brutally honest with myself, and with him, if this was going to be anything but a disaster.  Using the recent example again, I took a deep breath.  “Katiora was excited when I stood up to Mathiru,” I repeated.  “But it didn’t do anything for me.  I _had_ to.  Do you understand?  I was starting to slide, and I almost went red in front of him.”  I didn’t know what I was trying to say, but Daemian apparently did.

“Because of your father’s blood,” he said softly.  “The Luminor blood in you refuses to accept surrender, is this right?”

I nodded, glad he could put it so neatly into words.  But then, he was a Luminor, so he’d understand.  And he liked me, so he could be nice about it.  “but when he… when you… the voice,” I said.  I don’t think it was exciting to me to be dominated – I’d never felt anything like what the books described, at any rate, but it was _easier_ for me when my legs turned to water and my mind turned to slush.  Again, Daemian rescued me from my own inability.

“But you are half-Pet, as well, and that blood is just as strong.  Pets are designed to submit, as I’m sure you’ve heard ten thousand times.  They are made to cater to that Luminor desire to dominate.  What a mess you are, Ayden,” he said, but there was genuine affection in the voice, and I forgave him for the implied insult.  “I wish I could help,” he added with sincere regret.  “But an auction would do you no good if I did.”

I flushed.  “Um,” I said, and he laughed, patting my leg.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.  “Enjoy your books,” he added, and climbed to his feet.  He chuckled as he left, and I looked down at the next book in the pile.  “BDSM, Golden Showers, and More!” the lurid title declaimed.  “A Virginal Guide to the Kinky Side of Sex” read the subtitle.  I groaned, and picked up the book. 


	12. Chapter 12

The next day, with horrible images swirling around in my head – the BDSM book had been accompanied by graphic pictures – Daemian sat me down and said we were going to a Pet-Show, a holoshow often accompanied by live actors that the initiates would be taken to in order to see what they were going to be doing.  This was part of the ritual he’d briefly mentioned that most children of thirteen went through when their virginity was sacrificed in preparation for their adult lives.  Pets would be there, and young Luminors.  It somehow hadn’t really occurred to me that Pets and Luminors ever _were_ children, though logically I knew they must have come from somewhere – they didn’t just spring out of the beaker fully formed after all – but it brought me back to the fact that my mother and father must have undergone this here, and Daemian, and Katiora, Mathiru, Arania…

My head whirling, we went to the Pet-Show.  I was by far the oldest ‘initiate’ there, as everyone else was thirteen, though Daemian fit right in with the other companions.  We sat in the back of the small theatre, and no one noticed that I was well above the age of most of the others. 

It began on screen and on a little bed at the front of the theatre, two people coming together and kissing.  Then petting began, and they both got into it.  I found myself leaning forward, yearning to catch every detail.  In front of me, I saw the other initiates also craning their necks to get a better look at what was going on. 

At the end of it, I felt wrung out and emotionally dry.  I _wanted_ that.  Suddenly, I couldn’t wait for the auction, scheduled for three days hence.  I still hadn’t made a decision on whether I preferred men or women, and Daemian, laughing, told me I’d figure it out if I got the wrong person at the auction.  But because of my indecision, he’d invited a select group of five men and five women, all Luminors who’d been through this before and knew the way of it.  He also took great relish in presenting me with my auction outfit.  I didn’t know if all Luminors took such a fascination with clothes, or all gay men, or if it was just Daemian in particular, but he was absolutely mad for clothes.  I picked up the tiny briefs and sheer silk robe that went over them, and flushed to the roots of my hair.  My face and even neck felt hot as I realised how _on display_ I would be wearing that, and Daemian assured me that with my unusual colouring, people would be clamouring to get at me.  The outfit was entirely white, trimmed with silver, to accent how dark I was.  Olive brown skin, and black hair and eyes were extremely unusual in a society of light-skinned, light-haired people, and living here had taught me just how much I stuck out.  I figured that it would make it easier to find my father when my last two weeks were up and I was ready to set out on my search.  I just hoped no one put _his_ dark skin and hair together with _my_ dark skin and hair, because it was already getting out that Clarianne was my mother.  Apparently her beauty was famous here, even so many years after she’d gone.  Pictures of her still sold for high credit when they turned up.  I thought about going back and getting some of the pictures of her and selling them if I needed to supplement what Daemian referred to as my ‘income.’  I’d give her some of the money, of course;  Lanzi and I barely scraped up enough to support ourselves, and I knew that the results of the auction would bring me more credit than I’d ever even seen in my life.  I wouldn’t need all of it, not even living in Luminesca. 

The day of the auction dawned brightly, and I washed myself very carefully before dressing in that sheer robe and briefs.  I felt sensual and desirable, though, wearing it, and Daemian lost his voice the first time he saw me in it.

“You’re going to dazzle them,” he said after he’d got over the shock.  “They’re used to their light and wispy blonde things, and not many of them have ever seen anyone with dark hair and eyes like yours.”  He paused, then almost uncomfortably said, “You’re beautiful, Ayden.”

I stopped nervously pulling at my hair, and smiled at him.  The look of discomfort increased even as he smiled back, and I realised that if I was making Daemian – solid, staid Daemian – react that way then I was about to become a very rich man indeed once I stepped out on that little stage. 


	13. Chapter 13

It was time.  I took a deep breath and climbed up behind the curtain.  Daemian flashed me a supportive grin, and I almost forgot, for a moment, what it was that I was about to do.  Then the curtain came up and the ten men and women who’d gathered to bid on my body gasped in unison.  The awe on their faces as they took me in made me feel powerful, and my timid smile became genuine.  The auctioneer began speaking, and rapidly, the bids spiraled out of the range even Daemian had suggested as the outside number.  Whoever won me would pay an immense amount for it. 

It actually went fairly rapidly.  Within half an hour, it was winding down, two contestants still left in the bidding war.  I liked the look of them both, and I drew Daemian aside while they were arguing. 

“Is it possible for them both to contribute?” I asked.

He looked startled.  I was amused by how much I took him off guard since we’d made the decision to auction me off for the money to support my search.  “Very well,” he said finally, and took the auctioneer aside.  They agreed to both contribute their bids for the honour, and the already massive number of credits on the screen behind me doubled as the auctioneer announced they had both won.  There was some grumbling from the losers, but I just saw that line of numbers and couldn’t even consider it credits.  Credits that were now mine, because I was going to have sex with them.  The confrontation with Mathiru, and living with a sexually desirable Daemian as well as having read those damned books had inflamed my imagination, the flames fueled by the Pet-Show we’d attended.  For someone who’d never been involved before, the idea of taking two people at once was enough to set my head spinning.  All of a sudden, I realised what, exactly, Daemian had meant when he said that sex was a currency around here. 

For one night with the both of them, I had made enough money to support myself, Lanzi, Lanzi’s parents, and _my_ parents in Sublucida for the rest of everyone’s lives.  I would never have another auction for my virginity – they would take that tonight – but I knew that I could auction my services, or enter into a contract as a Pet, for enough money to support everyone I knew and loved forever.  Small sacrifice. 

Breathless with anticipation, both of the winners were now at peace with one another, and I was hard-pressed to decide which of the three of us was more excited.  We had a special room in a luxurious hotel reserved for our use, and we went there as soon as the final transaction had been made. 

SEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEX!!! **(REVISION NOTES: THIS COMES OUT. SO DOES THE AUCTION. GAH.)**

It started simply enough.  The woman, named Sharia, demanded I undress.  I felt that knees-to-water sensation, but for the first time since coming to Luminesca, I reveled in it.  Very slowly, I undid the sheer robe and let it fall down my body to pool on the floor.  Both of them, Sharia and Irakon, gasped. 

“You’re very unusual,” Sharia purred.  “They say Clary was your mother.  She attended one of my parties, once, did you know?  I give very… exciting…parties.”  She twined around me, and licked the outer curve of my ear.  I stood still, letting her do whatever she wanted.  It took some effort to keep from sliding into rage at the mention of my mother’s time as a Pet.  She wasn’t, not anymore, but she _had_ been, and I was going to have to deal with that sooner or later.  Especially since she’d apparently been famous.  I hadn’t met anyone yet who didn’t know of Clarianne.

Irakon watched the two of us from the bed, a sensual sleepiness hooding his eyes.  The expression on his face did more for me than the expert strokes Sharia was applying to my shoulders and back, and I wondered if I didn’t prefer men after all.  It was too late now, and the pressure of her hands on my skin wasn’t unpleasant. 

“How much do you know, little Aydenlan?”  Sharia was tugging at the waistband of the briefs I wore, her fingers agile and nimble. 

“I’ve read a few books,” I told her, and to my surprise, my voice sounded different.  I was truly innocent!  It chafed at me, and I was glad tonight was the night.  “I saw a Pet-Show.” 

“Nothing more?  With Clary for a mother?  Didn’t she teach you anything?”

“She’s not a Pet anymore,” I said stiffly, and some of the languor was fading.  She must have sensed it, because she eased up off the topic of my mother. 

“Very well,” she said instead.  “Then this will be doubly fun.”  With a glance at Irakon, she kissed me.  Her tongue thrust in and out of my mouth in a rhythm that made me pant.  One finger toyed with my chest, drawing circles that spiraled closer to my nipple until she touched it, sending a shock through my body.  I made an involuntary sound, and she giggled, muffling the noise against my mouth.  “I like you, Aydenlan.” 

I didn’t bother to tell her it was just Ayden; I knew it was a bizarre name.  Most people had nicknames that were shorter than their real names, but their full names were three or four syllables long, at least.  I didn’t mind her calling me Aydenlan, either.  It made me feel important, like spinning out my name that way made me older and more mature. 

“I like you too,” I murmured back, my voice husky. 

“Good,” she said.  “Get down on your knees,” she ordered suddenly.  With what felt like grateful surrender, I finally gave into the urges and went down.  She directed me in what to do, and I explored her femininity with my mouth until she was gasping and spasming. 

“Very good,” she said when she’d caught her breath.  “Don’t you want to give Ira a taste of that sweet little mouth?”

I nodded, feeling drugged, and slowly crawled up the bed to where Irakon lay.  He’d divested himself of his clothing while we were busy, and I took a moment to examine his hardness.  His skin was so pale, the blue veins carrying his blood were visible through it.  He wasn’t anything like Sharia; instead of telling me exactly what to do, he simply lay back and allowed me to explore.  He was also quiet.  While I went to work, licking and sucking and pulling and nipping everything I could get near, it wasn’t until I looked up and saw the glazed passion on his face that I realised I was doing a good job.  With a proud smile, I dove back into my self-appointed work, waiting until I saw his muscles tighten in preparation for his release.  Sharia’s sudden touch on my ass startled me, and I pulled back just as he climaxed, spraying his seed all over my face and into my hair.  I licked some of it off and listened to him groan helplessly.  It didn’t taste too bad, I decided, but as I took in their expressions as they looked at me, I decided not to wash it off right away.  One of my books had told me it was murder to get out of hair, but I liked the way it made them shudder in helpless pleasure to see me so marked.  Sharia’s hand slipped beneath the tiny shorts I was still wearing and her long, soft fingers strolled over me.  I froze, my breath gasping through my mouth in helpless moans. 

“Stand up,” Sharia ordered.  “Get those things off.”  She leaned down to whisper something to Irakon while I was undressing fully, and they shifted around on the bed until she was lying on her back at my feet.  “ _Fuck me,_ ” she ordered.  I nearly fell as my body refused to support my weight under the compulsive power of her command.  I moved up her body, entering her slowly.  It was like a revelation.  Pleasure burst at me from all sides, and when I was fully sheathed within her, I had to stop for a moment. 

A moment was all I had, because a second later I felt something hard and blunt probing at me, glanced over my shoulder, and realised that Irakon was going to fuck me while I fucked her.  I moaned helplessly, my hips wiggling as he slowly entered me.  It hurt like blazes, but with my dick surrounded by Sharia’s hot, wet femaleness and the feeling of both their hands on my hips and chest, the pain became something unimaginably wonderful.  I felt complete, both filling and filled, and then Ira’s hands pulled my hips back until I’d nearly been pulled straight out of Sharia.  I felt him pulling back, and waited as the burn reversed itself.  My legs were shaking with the effort of holding myself back while he slowly exited my body, but I was waiting for orders, waiting for them to tell me what they wanted.  I didn’t have to wait long, because just before he would have pulled completely free of my body, he slammed back in.  The force of his thrust pushed me back into Sharia and she moaned, writhing beneath us both. 

It wasn’t long before we found a rhythm in it, me pulling back, him pulling back, him pushing forward into both of us.  I felt something wonderful spiraling out of my control deep inside as we fucked.  It kept getting higher and I wondered if it would ever stop. 

Then I felt Sharia convulsing around me again as she came, and that seemed to be the trigger because the spiral broke and my mind went white as pleasure rushed through me in a tidal wave.  It was like the slide into the rage, except instead of red everything was white and sparkling.  Vaguely, I was aware of Ira thrusting wildly behind me, no longer worried about keeping the slow tempo as he finished himself inside me. 

I collapsed beside them, and may have slept for a while after we were done because the next thing I was aware of was a wet heat wrapped around my manhood.  It surged to life as my eyes snapped open, and I barely had enough sense left to look down and see Sharia with her lips wrapped around me. 

“We paid for your virginity,” Ira said from somewhere above me.  “We intend to have it.” 

When Sharia had sucked me off, she played with me until I was hard again.  Ira offered me a glass of something that made everything sparkle, and after I found I didn’t have any trouble staying hard.  I wondered what sort of drug was in it, but I didn’t care.  After Sharia was done, Ira planted his hips over mine and then I was fucking _him_ , or he was fucking himself on me.  I felt used, like I was nothing more than a dick for his pleasure, and deep inside, this thought thrilled me with desire. 

Before he came, he pulled himself off of me and picked me up.  My legs went around his waist and he thrust into me, not even letting me get a grip on the bed; his hold on my hips were all that he needed to bounce me up and down like a doll while he took his pleasure.  Exiting quickly, he spun me around until I was face down on the bed.  Sharia pushed herself up to my face, and I struggled to satisfy her while Ira pounded into me from behind.  She flipped herself underneath _me_ , so that I had to take my weight onto my hands to keep pleasuring her, and then I felt her mouth wrap around me again and while I licked her, she sucked me and above us both, Ira fucked me into her mouth. 

I lost track of how many times I came, or made them come.  The drink they’d given me kept me from tiring out, though I knew I’d pay for it at some point when this night was over. 

We all three slept for a while, and again I was awakened by someone playing with me.  This time it was Ira sucking at me, which distracted me enough that I didn’t see Sharia until it was too late.  She lifted my ankles up over her shoulders, reached between her legs, and a curious buzzing noise sounded in the room.  When she pushed into me with something hard and moving, I realised she’d strapped a vibrator to herself and was fucking me with it.  Ira busied himself tying my hands to the bedframe, while I writhed helplessly beneath the relentless thrust of the vibrator.  It nudged against something deep inside me and I saw sparks flying behind my eyes. 

When the first light of dawn crept in through the window, it found us all asleep in a wet, sticky pile on the bed.  I woke up when it struck me in the eyes, and groaned.  I felt like I’d never have sex again.

ENDENDENDENDENDENDENDENDEND SEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEX

It took me forever just to get down the stairs and out of the building the morning after.  I was sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore in, but it had been worth it; I was a rich man.  The only problem with having that much money was that I didn’t know what to do with it.  So I let it sit in the credit account Daemian had helped me set up, and instead I went home.  I had two more weeks in Daemian’s house, but I didn’t know how much I’d be getting done for the next few days.  Fortunately he was a neat man and I didn’t really _need_ to do much. 

He greeted me at the door, smiling widely.  “I’ve brought you some more clothes.  You’ll need more than the old stuff you’ve been mucking about here in when you get out on your own.” 

 _Old stuff?_ I wondered, thinking about the fantastic fabrics and construction that had gone into the things I’d been ‘mucking about’ in.  If those were his ideas of _old clothes_ I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to know what _new_ things would constitute. 

“I don’t think I have the energy to deal with clothes right now,” I muttered, and he laughed.  I went straight to my room, past the piles of clothing boxes that greeted me, and flopped into bed.  I vaguely remembered Daemian waking me up at some point to eat, but as soon as I had the food down me, I fell asleep again.  When I woke up again, the clock beside my bed told me it had been two whole days since the night of my auction.  I’d slept the whole time!  I jerked up out of bed, a little bit worried about the state the house had slipped into while I’d been sleeping.  Daemian greeted me at the door, a bowl of steaming soup in his hands.

“Ah,” he said.  “You’re awake.  It’s about time; I was prepared to call for a medic if you didn’t get up soon.”  He sounded so nonchalant that it took me a moment to get past the tone of voice to see the dark smudges under his eyes and the worry-lines creasing the corners of his eyes.  I hurried into the bathroom without saying anything, feeling like I was about to burst, and realised I needed a shower.  I felt grimy and disgusting, still coated with Lumi-only-knew what. 

Having relieved myself that far, I took the soup from him.  “They gave me something,” I said.  His expression cleared.

“Ah,” he said again.  “It was probably chamlin, an aphrodisiac. It’s totally harmless, but it does make you sleep.  I wish you’d said something about that when you came back,” he added accusingly.  I shrugged and sipped at the soup.  He sat and watched over me while I ate, and then helped me into the bathing room.  I felt a little twinge of self-consciousness about him helping me to undress, but I reminded myself that he’d seen plenty of people before and that it hadn’t bothered me after the auction.  I ended up just sitting beneath the spray of water when even that gentle pressure threatened to knock me over.  I wasn’t tired anymore, but I felt weak as a newborn kitten.  There were still rope marks around my wrist, evidence of the part of the night when things had gotten a little adventurous.  Daemian saw them and frowned, but didn’t say anything, for which I was grateful. 

“Take a few days and just rest,” he said instead, when I’d gotten out of the shower.  “And unpack some of your boxes, so you know what you have to wear,” he added with a mischievous grin.  I groaned.

“You and your clothes,” I muttered. 

“Someone’s got to worry about clothes,” he said.  “You’d probably run around in the rags from Sublucida if I let you.  The point here is to blend in and keep your head down; if you stick out to much no one will tell you anything and you won’t find Morgan.”

I started suddenly, realising I’d forgotten Morgan.  Daemian and my virgin night had driven all other thoughts from my head.  “Right,” I said, and stopped arguing.  He looked at me sharply, but didn’t say anything.  Not until dinner, anyway.

“How much do I owe you for the clothes?” I asked after we’d sat down to eat. 

He smiled.  “Nothing at all.  Consider them a gift.”

I choked.  “But those are way too expensive,” I said.  “You can’t just give them to me.”

He shook his head, looking at his wine glass instead of me.  “They weren’t as expensive as you think, Ayden,” he said.  “I realise that in Sublucida clothes as fine as you think those are would fetch quite a price at market, but here in Luminesca they’re fairly low-key.  You’ll see once you get into the city proper.  There some of the clothes people wear would make you blush,” he added, grinning wickedly at me. 

I scowled, spearing a piece of meat on my utensil.  Someone knocked on the door before I could respond, and since standing and sitting were still an effort for me, Daemian did the highly improper thing and got up and answered the door himself.

He was frowning when he came back, turning a letter over in his hands.  “This is for you,” he said.  “It looks serious.”

Suddenly petrified that I’d done something wrong, I gingerly took the letter and opened it.  I barely scanned the words, looking for the gist, and dropped it.  “I have to go,” I said, throwing myself out of the chair in spite of the pain it caused.  “Lanzi’s sick.  They had to take her to the hospital.  Please, Daemian, let me go.  I’ll come back, I promise I will, I just have to make sure she’s okay.”

No one went to the hospital in Sublucida if they could help it.  If they’d taken Lanzi there, it was something extraordinarily serious.  Daemian seemed to know or sense that, because he nodded without hesitation. 

“Let me just write up a letter of passage for you.  I doubt you’ll need it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”  He suited actions to words, pulling a fresh sheet of paper from a drawer and scratching out a message on it.  “Don’t lose this, but show it to anyone who tries to stop you,” he said, then drew me into a hug.  Startled, I didn’t move for a moment, and before I could get my arms around him to hug him back he was releasing me.  “It has been a pleasure to have you here, and I am looking forward to seeing Lanzi whole and in good health.  Please invite her back here when you know how she’s doing.”  It had an odd air of farewell to it, and he smiled at my puzzled look.  “I’m releasing you from service.  You no longer need me, and it’d be better for you to come back and find your own place,” he said.  I felt some stupid tears welling up in my eyes, and wiped them away.

“I’ll come back and visit a lot,” I said.  “Besides, I’d never get any new clothes without you.”

He laughed quietly, and then patted my ass.  “Go on, then, get out of here.”

I took off through the door at a dead run.


	14. Chapter 14

I didn’t get very far before being stopped.  “I have a letter of release from Luminor Daemian,” I said, shoving the paper at them.  The girl peered at it, then nodded. 

“Very well, I apologise.  But do be careful about running, young lord, you never know who you’ll run into.” She returned the letter to me, and I kept going.  I had to get back to Lanzi!  I had the money now to get her transferred to a hospital in Luminesca if she needed it, but not if something happened to her before I got to her!

The second time I was stopped, I nearly didn’t even explain myself.  Then an ice-white hand reached out and clamped down on my wrist, and I looked up, shocked, into the wide and amused eyes of Luminor Mathiru.

“Going somewhere, Claryson?”

“Let me go, Mathiru, I have a letter of release from Daemian.”  I tried wrenching my wrist from his hand, but all I succeeded in doing was bruising my wrist even more.  He turned my hand around and looked at the letter, and saw the rope marks around my wrist.  The nasty expression on his face deepened as he took the letter from me.

“Not any more you don’t,” he said, and shoved it into his pocket.  I gasped, but he ignored me, saying instead “I heard you caused quite a stir with your auction.  A pity I wasn’t invited,” he added, and hauled me into his aircar. 

I nearly launched myself at him, ready to tear his throat out with my bare hands if I had to, when he stood up to his full height and in that voice I hated, commanded me to stand down.  I had no choice.  It was like a switch had been flipped in my brain, turning me from my own person into a slave.  I stopped moving with such suddenness that I actually fell over my own feet. 

“You dirty son of a bitch,” I swore, and he kicked me.  Gasping for breath, I tried to summon that blanketing rage that had always come out before.  To my surprise, I couldn’t summon it.  I was pissed, sure, and I’d kill him if he gave me the chance, but the all-consuming, red-veiled _rage_ wasn’t there. 

“Can’t make the slide, can you?”  Mathiru’s voice was idle, almost fond.  “I thought so.  Sexual exhaustion does interfere with that slightly.  It _is_ a pity I wasn’t invited to your auction, my darling half-breed.  I would have loved to have been the cause of your exhaustion.”  He grabbed hold of my hair, yanking my head up so that I looked him in the face.  “Looking for a family friend, my ass.  I knew Morgan as well as anyone, and he wanted Clary like no one else.  How long did he wait after they escaped to Sublucida before knocking her up, do you know?”  He threw me down and my head hit the corner of a little table.  Stars danced in my eyes, obscuring my vision of him.  “If you’d been born here as you were supposed to have been they’d have killed you before she had a chance to birth you.  Or you’d have been locked up like the wild animal you are.  A Pet’s sex drive in a body that houses a Luminor’s power.  You could be the downfall of everything we’ve been working for, you know.”  His tone was almost conversational, but that was until I saw him emptying a bottle of something onto a rag.  He shoved it over my mouth and nose, and I held my breath, determined to die before I let him do anything else to me.

He must have seen something in my face.  “Breathe,” he commanded, voice strident. I sucked in a breath through the liquid-soaked rag and then the drug swam through my already-foggy brain and darkness overwhelmed me. 


	15. Chapter 15

When I woke up, there were strange manacles around my wrists and ankles.  I was in a dark room that didn’t seem to be carpeted, but beyond that I couldn’t tell anything.  I felt around and realised that one of the curious metal rings was around my neck as well, and then I realised I didn’t have any clothes on. 

But there was one of those little metal rings around my manhood as well.  I screamed something; mostly it was just for the noise.  It echoed off the walls, and then the lights came up.  The room was box-shaped, and everything was metal.  There was no furniture or anything besides those cold steel walls – and me.  Dressed up like a doll, and in the light I examined the rings that enclosed my limbs.  There was no visible hinges, and they were too tight to get off without breaking something. 

“Mathiru!” I howled.  “Where the fuck are you!?”

A section of the wall broke away and he strode into the room.  “No need to shout,” he admonished, and the unholy glee in his gaze as he took in my appearance was sickening.  Then he pointed something in his hand at me – for a moment I was afraid he was going to shoot me, but why go to all the trouble of kidnapping me if he was just going to kill me anyway? – and pain erupted in my body. 

It traveled in waves from each point of contact with those little metal rings, including the ones on my neck and my dick.  I screamed; I couldn’t help it. 

After an eternity, the pain stopped.  I lay on the ground, and couldn’t remember having fallen. 

“Don’t you like my new toys?  I created them so that the next Pet I acquired wouldn’t betray me quite so thoroughly as your mother.  Did you know I loved her?  Of course not, Araniamala probably didn’t even tell you my name.  They all hated me, did you know that either?”

I spat at his feet. “I hate you too,” I said, but then he pressed that little remote again and the world was awash in a searing agony. 

“I love this thing,” he said when my head cleared.  The echoes of my own screams rang in my ears.  “I wonder if your father would find it amusing as you do?  Or if perhaps I should take some pictures and go ransom you to your friends.  Do you think Clary would come back if I offered her a deal between your life and hers?”  I snarled wordlessly at him, prompting him to send a fresh wave of torture at me.  I reached for the rage I could feel simmering just under the surface, but it was as out of my reach as if it hadn’t belonged to me at all. 

“Or maybe I’ll just break you and send you back to Daemian as a gift,” he said quietly, the twisted smile on his face frightening me more than the possibility that he’d carry out his threats.  I struggled to my feet, and the metal underneath me felt warm from my body heat.  It was then I realised how cold I was, and wondered where we were.  I coiled my body like a snake preparing to strike and lunged for him, confident that if I could just move fast enough I could get that remote out of his hand and take him down before he had a chance to get anything else out – but I was too slow. 

I heard the click of the button again just as another onslaught of pain washed through me.  I crashed to the floor, heard something inside snap, and blacked out again. 

When I next came to, my wrist was throbbing and swollen around the metal ring.  The rest of the contact points with the bands felt raw, as if they’d been burned.  My mind was swimming – how long had it been since he took me?  Was anyone even aware I was gone?  – but I had no way of knowing anything, not even what time it was or whether it was day or night.  There was absolutely _nothing_ in the room but me.  No windows, no visible doors, nothing.  I began to feel like I’d go crazy, trapped in that room with nothing but solid metal to look at.  My stomach rumbled, and I realised there was no toilet or shower, or even slots for food to be passed through.  I wondered if he was planning on starving me to death.  My head spinning, I sat in the corner of that room and waited. 


	16. Chapter 16

With no way of knowing how long it was between visits, I spent much of my time looking inwards, thinking of all the time with my parents that I’d lost.  Wondering how Lanzi was doing, and what had been wrong with her.  I wondered too if Daemian missed me yet.  I missed him, with a ferocity that surprised me.  I’d hated him the first time I saw him, but in the month I’d spent with him I’d learned of his sly humour, his penchant for clothing, and so many other things.  I wanted at least a chance to say goodbye properly. 

I’d slept three times before Mathiru came back, bearing a tray of food.  “Eat,” he said.  “Keep up your strength for when you start to lose it.”  He clicked the button and anguish ripped through me while he set the tray down and retreated from the room.  Freezing cold and immeasurably sore where my wrist had been broken, I inched towards the tray.  It wasn’t anything like I’d become used to at Daemian’s; it looked more like something I might have scavenged out of the trash in Sublucida.  But it was food, and that was important.  I could feel my hold on the rage coming closer, like a scared animal I had to coax forward.  I looked forward to the day I could reach it, and slide down into that deep, red pit where I could tear him apart before he had a chance to reach for that damn remote control.  My shaking was worse after I ate, and it belatedly occurred to me to wonder if he’d drugged the food.  Then I realised I was just going to go batshit insane locked in this tiny, featureless room, and the horror stories Daemian had told me about the other children of Luminors and Pets echoed in my mind. 

Thinking about it brought it closer to the surface.  The food started appearing in the room while I was asleep, as if Mathiru knew I was losing my grip and didn’t trust the power of the pain rings he’d fitted me with.  If I made him nervous, all the better.  But the downside of that was that I made myself nervous, too.  My wrist was slowly healing, but not well, and I was afraid of getting out of here and not being able to use it anymore.  I was afraid of never getting out. 

I started hearing things.  Small voices whispered in the back of my mind that I was never getting out, that I was going to die trapped in this hole, and never see the sun again.  Never use my power, never slide into the rage which at least made me feel alive.  Never had sex again.  At least Lumi wasn’t cruel enough to have let me die a virgin.  I knew what I was missing, and I craved it, however.  Some days when Mathiru made his visits I thought I’d submit to him if he’d just let me fuck him.  It was as if surrendering my virginity had unlocked a door inside that I didn’t know was there before it was wide open and letting all sorts of things through. 

“If you can behave, I’ll let you out of here,” Mathiru said one day.  I stared at him for a long minute, not comprehending what he was saying at first.  My mouth moved, but no words came out because it had been so long since I’d made any noise but screaming that I’d almost forgotten how to make the words.

“What?” I finally managed.  My throat was dry, and I felt like something wild. 

“Behave yourself.  I have ways of forcing you, of course, but I’d rather it not come to that.”  He took a step back, leaving the door wide open.  Cautiously, I climbed to my feet.  For a moment, I didn’t think they’d support my weight, lean as I’d become.  I shook, my legs trembled and I had to lean on the wall to keep my balance, but after a few moments when that door didn’t close and slam on the promise of freedom, I managed to take a few hesitant steps towards it.  The light streaming in to the small room was almost blinding, and I squinted into it, waiting for the ambush I was sure had to be coming now that he’d dragged me out. 

“I won’t hurt you unless you force me,” he promised.  I bared my teeth at him, refusing to reply, and kept my fragile grip on my balance.  Something inside me unfurled and relaxed as I looked around the spacious house.  Through the windows I could see real _trees_ , and blue sky, and wondered where we were.  “My country house,” Mathiru said.  “So that no one gets curious about all the screaming.”  He gave me that twisted smile again, and I realised he was insane.  If I hadn’t also realised that he was well on his way to making _me_ insane as well, I might have lunged for him.  “Settle down, or I’ll use it,” he said calmly, waving the remote.  He didn’t even have to use _the voice._   I felt myself relax, and crouched on the floor.  I didn’t trust him enough to relax fully, or to sit myself down in a way that would make it hard to get back up if he came for me, but crouched like that I could both rest my legs and be able to spring into motion if he made any threatening moves.  I took a deep breath, looking around.  It was as sparsely decorated as Daemian’s apartment, and I wondered if that was a mark of the profession rather than the man. 

“Ayden,” Mathiru said, and for a minute I didn’t know who he was talking about.  “Ayden,” he said again, irritation in his voice.  _Me!_ I realised, and spun on the balls of my feet.  The remote pointed directly at me was my first and only clue, and then the pain – no less agonising for all that it was becoming a familiar companion – ripped through me.  It stopped after only a small eternity, and then I felt Mathiru’s weight across my body, smelled the alcohol on his breath.  The fucker was _drunk_ and there wasn’t a lights-damned thing I could do about it. 

“Ayden,” he said again, and this time I remembered it was my name.  He groaned, fumbling at my body.  “Let me fuck you and I’ll let you go.  Eventually.”

I thought about spending the rest of my life in that tiny room and could have killed myself right then and there to spare myself from it.  Letting him use my body was a small sacrifice to make; it didn’t matter anymore, anyway.  It just made me hurt, and I thought I could remember a time when it didn’t hurt, when it felt good.  That memory was a long way off, however, and I had to struggle to remember why I thought it might feel good.  Pain was all I could remember.  It felt like I’d lived with Mathiru always, and the rest of the things I could feel pressing on my brain were just products of my imagination. 

“Okay,” I said, shrugging.  I hated being on my back and feeling helpless like that, but it – like letting him put his drunk, filthy hands on me – was better than being put back in that room.  After a while, it even started to feel pleasant. 

I howled my throat raw when he put me back in the steel room after he was done, though.


	17. Chapter 17

I started looking forward to the times when he’d drag me out to fuck me.  Occasionally he’d even take off some of the rings and let me fuck him, but that wasn’t as much fun because it was too tiring.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror he kept in the bedroom – the whole room was mirrored, I realised a moment later – and for a moment wondered who was in there with me.  I looked like shit; my ribs were all visible through my skin, and my hipbones protruded from the concave dip of my belly.  My dark eyes were sunken, and my hair was long and greasy.  I wondered how he found anything worth fucking in me, but it didn’t stop him; and if he called me Clary sometimes, looking deep into my eyes and nowhere else, well, it didn’t matter to me what he called me.  As long as it let me out of that room for a while. 

I realised after several times that if I did exactly what he asked, the first time, he wouldn’t punish me.  I became the most attentive slave-lover he’d ever had, anticipating the things he might want from me, and in return he let me stay outside the room for longer periods, until he almost never put me back in it.  I slept on the floor beside his bed, a chain leading from the collar around my throat to his hand, just in case I got any ideas.  I was happier in his bedroom than I was in the little metal room, however, and had no plans of going anywhere.  Not while he was willing to let me stay out there with him.

One day, he came at me with a coloured puddle of fabric.  “Put this on,” he said, and held out the remote.  Suddenly afraid he was going to send the pain if I didn’t, I hurried into it, getting it tangled around my head before freeing myself.  It was a loose robe that covered me from my neck to my feet.   I heard the click and braced myself for the pain, but none came.  Instead there was a brief loosening around my ankles, wrists, and neck and suddenly the constricting bands fell off and clattered to the floor.  I kicked at them, then glanced at Mathiru to make sure he wasn’t unhappy.  On the contrary, he seemed amused.  I kicked at them again, hating them, then stepped away from them and waited to see what he was going to do. 

“Come with me,” he said, and we went _outside!_   I climbed into the aircar when he opened the door, and felt happy for the first time – ever.  He climbed into the driver’s seat and I looked out the window, watching the scenery race by.  We entered a large, luminous city, and I wondered where we were going.  We didn’t stop until we’d reached a specific building, and he told me to stay close.  I stayed so near him I nearly stepped on his feet more than once.  We stopped before a door, and he made me stand behind him, where I’d be hidden from view until he stepped out of the way.  I understood what he was doing, if not why.  He wanted me to be a surprise.

He knocked on the door.  I longed to look around him and see what opened it, but he’d told me to stay out of sight until he moved, and I knew he’d make me hurt if I didn’t. 

“Mathiru!  Where have you been?  We’ve been worried sick for months.  Did you want to come inside?”

“No, no.  I just came to drop something off with you.  It’s a little bit broken, but I’m sure you’ll find it just as much fun, if not moreso.”

“What?”

Mathiru stepped away from me, shoved me forward, and then bolted down the hallway, cackling.  My legs gave out from underneath me and I hit the floor at his feet, cradling my sore wrist.  “ _Ayden!_   Lanzi, Clary, come quickly! It’s Ayden!” I was yanked to my feet and picked up.  This person was tall and strong like Mathiru, but I’d just seen Mathiru abandon me.  I wondered if that meant he wasn’t going to hurt me anymore.

“Ayden!”  More people crowding around me, shouting that word.  I cringed, covering my ears.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Ayden?”  A girl – she looked so familiar, but I couldn’t think of her name.  The only name I knew was Mathiru.  He was Master.  “Ayden, its Lanzi.  What’s wrong?”

“Daemian, look at his wrists.  They look broken, or – or _burned._   What has that man done to my son?”  The voice was a harsh wail, and I looked up past the girl Lanzi to see an angel sobbing into the man’s shoulder.  I looked back at the girl, puzzled.  The faces were all familiar, but it had been so long… had I ever seen them before, or had I just imagined them?  Was I imagining them now? 

“Ayden?”

“…Who?” Lady of Lights, my throat hurt!  I swallowed, trying to get some feeling back in my mouth.  The girl stared at me, her eyes wide. 

“Ayden!”

I felt dizzy all of a sudden, and realised it had been too long since I ate last.  Probably three or four days.  “I don’t know any Ayden,” I said.  “I need –” but I never finished the statement, because then I pitched forward, blackness overwhelming me. 

The girl was still staring up at me when I opened my eyes again.  I yelped, backing away, and realised I was on a _bed._   Mathiru would kill me if he found out, and for a moment I braced for the pain. 

When nothing came, I glanced down at my wrists and realised the horrible bands were gone.  No more pain.  It made me smile.  The girl offered food to me on a plate, food I didn’t recognise.

“What is this?”

“Sandwiches,” she said.  “Eat them, they’re pretty good.”  Her voice caught on a sob, and the plate trembled.  If one of us dropped that plate, I didn’t know what would happen.  I snatched at it, getting it before it fell out of her hands.  I stuffed the sandwiches into my mouth, sighing as the flavours burst over my tongue.  I couldn’t – I must have eaten food like this before, but I couldn’t remember ever tasting anything so wonderful.  The girl was crying for some reason, and when I’d finished off the sandwiches, I put a hand on her shoulder.

“Why are you sad?”

“Ayden you’re a damn fool!” she shouted at me.  I realised that Ayden must be me. 

“I’m sorry?” I said, wondering what I did and if she was going to hurt me.  “Please don’t make it hurt, I’ll be good,” I said. 

Comprehension dawned in her eyes, but of what I only wish I could say.  She bolted from the room, screaming for Daemian and Clary. 

I braced myself, waiting for them to come in and tell me what I was doing wrong.  When no one came, I started to relax.  I’d almost managed to make myself fall asleep when I heard the door swing open, and jerked upright. 

“You need a bath,” the man said, wrinkling his nose.  “By the Lights of Lumi, Ayden, what happened to you?” The fervent plea made me feel like I’d done something wrong. 

“I’ll … tell you what I can?” I offered, hoping that it would help them stop being so upset. 

“Bath first,” the man said, and he helped me out of the robe and into a small room.  There was almost no metal in it, but he nearly had to pick me up and shove me to get me past the doorway.

“Don’t lock me in here,” I begged.  “Don’t make me stay.”

He looked at me oddly, and again I saw that mysterious understanding light his face.  “I begin to grasp the extent of your ordeal,” he murmured, and then, louder, said “I won’t lock you in here.  The door will remain open the whole time if you would like.” I nodded, and he pulled the robe over my head.  He gasped and drew back when he saw me, and I looked down and realised why.  Almost every bone that could protrude _was_ , and my skin was pale and ashen looking.  I looked horrible.  In the back of my mind, I remembered looking in a similar mirror and seeing a totally different me.  Not fat, but well-fleshed.  Golden brown skin.  Muscled.  I doubted if I could outwrestle a kitten just now, and fighting against any of the others was out of the picture entirely.  In the memory I had, looking in that mirror, I was wearing almost nothing.  Another robe, a sheer one that displayed that body to perfection.  The hair was shorter though, and better groomed.  As the grimy vision of reality reimposed itself over my memories, I scowled at the lank, unwashed hair that fell halfway down my back.  If the shiny version of me was what they’d been expecting, then no wonder it was so horrible to look at me. 

I got in the shower as requested, and bathed.  I found the floral scent of the soaps he handed me pleasant, and smiled, feeling like a little kid.  He brought in some clothes for me when I was done and dry, and they hung on me as though they’d been made for a larger man.  Then I remembered the filled-out and well-muscled memory I had of myself, and realised they must have been mine from … before.

We all gathered in the sitting room.  The girl, Lanzi, was dry-eyed, although the woman was crying still. 

“Clary,” the man said.  “Calm down so he can tell us where he’s been.”

“Clary?” I said, startled.  “You’re Clary?”  I smiled.  “No wonder he misses you,” I said.  “You’re very beautiful.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said wetly.  “Who misses me?”

I hunched, feeling like I was about to upset them all again.  “Mathiru,” I said.  “The Master.”

I was right; my words caused an instant explosion as the man leapt to his feet and bellowed, and the woman Clary screamed, and the girl Lanzi jumped up and started yelling at them both to shut up.  After a few minutes, order had been restored, and Lanzi gave me a quick hug.

“Go on,” she said.  “We promise not to do that again.” And with a dark glare at the two older ones, she settled herself beside me.  I smiled slightly, wondering that this tiny slip of a girl had apparently appointed herself my protector. 

“I don’t know,” I said helplessly.  “I don’t… remember much.  Except… pain.”  Absently, I rubbed at my wrists and caught the glance the two older ones exchanged.  “It hurt when I did something bad, so I … stopped.”  I shuddered at the memory.  “And the room,” I said, my voice dropping.  “It was a little metal room and he wouldn’t let me come out.”

“Sweet Lady of Lights,” Clary murmured.  “Didn’t you say that’s what… the other children, the reason…?”

The man nodded grimly.  “If I ever get my hands on him, I’ll kill him.” 

“Daemian,” I said suddenly as the name popped into my head.  He glanced at me, a curious look on his face.  “That’s your name,” I said, then wasn’t sure because no one was reacting.  “Isn’t it?”

“Yes, Ayden,” he whispered.  “That’s me.”

Lanzi and Clary suddenly bent together, a hurried, whispered conversation passing between them.  I heard the words ‘memories’ and ‘pain’ and ‘metal room’ but beyond that, couldn’t make out what they were talking about.  “I believe that if we keep him here long enough, he may remember,” Clary said.  “I don’t… want to.  But he’ll be safer here than anywhere else.  If you don’t mind.”

Daemian shook his head.  “I don’t mind,” he said.  “Will you continue to look for Morgan?”

“My dad,” I interjected.  I remembered the name Morgan.  “Luminor Morgantran.”  The more I concentrated, the more memories came back to me.  I remembered being happy here with Daemian.  I remembered Lanzi.  All of a sudden, as if Morgan’s name was the key they’d been waiting for, memories rushed back, tumbling over one another in their haste.  Overwhelmed by the mad rush, all I could do was sit there and wait for it to pass.  “By the lights,” I whispered, and for the first time in months I felt like myself again.  Daemian lurched to his feet, and I flinched reflexively.  Some things would take longer than others.  I still didn’t know if anything was missing.  My wrist ached horribly, but at least I could look at my best friend and _know_ her, and see my mother and _know_ her.  I looked up at Daemian, and gave a wry sort of smile at the look on his face.  “If you don’t kill him, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Ayden,” he whispered, thunderstruck.  “Are you… alright?”

“I … think so,” I said.  “I know myself now.  I think.  I don’t know.  That room…” I shuddered.  He’d locked me in a tiny room and didn’t let me out until I started losing myself.  I’d slept with him.  The shudder came again, stronger, and turned into trembling.  I’d slept with him so many times that I couldn’t even count them anymore, and he’d called me by my mother’s name…

I felt dirty.  Used.  _Horrible._  

“I’m going to be sick,” I said, and staggered to my feet, breaking into a run for the bathroom before my stomach emptied the sandwiches I’d consumed all over the floors.  I didn’t want to have to clean it up. 

“His eyes are still so empty,” Lanzi said.  I heard her even from the bathroom, over the sound of myself getting noisily sick into the toilet.  “It frightens me.  What did that man do to him?” 

“Torture,” came Daemian’s voice, low and rough.  “Six months of torture, Lanzi, will do a lot to a person’s mind.  And Ayden…”  I wiped my mouth, perking up at the sound of my name.  “Ayden wasn’t exactly stable to begin with.” 

Lanzi denied that, but Clary overruled her.  “He wasn’t, Lanzi,” she said.  I winced to hear my mother talking about me like that, like I wasn’t just two rooms away and couldn’t hear them.  “We knew,” she said.  “We knew as soon as I got pregnant that there was a chance he wouldn’t… survive.  We knew, too, that no child had ever lived past the age of five or six without destroying themselves.  When he reached seven, still sane, we were so full of hope.  Maybe _our_ child was different.  _Our_ child would live!  But then he ran away, and we never saw him again.  Not until your father dropped him off on my doorstep seven months ago.”  She gave a bitter laugh.  “I could tell, he had both of us in him.  He concealed it well, but it was obvious to someone who knew where to look.  Then Daemian told me that perhaps he had figured out _why_ those children went insane.”  She trailed off.

“Aunt Clary, I don’t understand,” Lanzi said plaintively.  “Why would he have gone insane?  What happened to my Ayden!?”

“Luminors are unstable by design,” Daemian interjected.  “I, Mathiru, Morgan.  All of us.  We do not thrive when… contained.  Originally, it made us better guards.  If we were captured, we would lose it and take out our captors as well as ourselves.  Problems solved.  But these days, when we are no more than glorified watchmen, guarding a city that doesn’t need guarding, the tendency to lose our minds when contained is more of a liability, but one we can overcome with training.  For Pets, whose lot in life is to be constrained… Well.  Pets always breed Pets.  And Luminors can usually be counted on to throw Luminors, though we are proscribed to do so only with one another, if at all.  A special dispensation and proof of marriage is needed to reverse the sterility in order to procreate.  But when Luminors breed with Pets – as Morgan and Clary did – often the children are aborted before birth.  Otherwise they become unstable around age five or six, with conflicting desires to dominate, be dominated, to contain and be contained… I imagine it’s something like having a war in your head at all times, and the children, they aren’t capable of handling that sort of back and forth. So for their own safety, if they are allowed to be born, they are… confined.  In the Oubliette.  Where they lose their minds regardless and destroy themselves.  When Ayden came to me and confessed his parentage, I thought he was lying.  Then I realised he was telling the truth, but that was impossible because all children of Luminors and pets – every. Single. Last. One. Without fail. All children of such unions do not live to see ten years old, but here he was, nearly eighteen.  I couldn’t fathom it until he revealed he had run away when the urges came on him, when he felt confined, and conflicted.  And he told me that you helped him too, Lanzi, that somehow you knew when he needed to move, and you helped him stay within himself.

“I believe that when Mathiru confined him to that little metal room, he was undoing years of work on both your parts.  It is the deepest fear of any Luminor to be confined to a small space for any length of time, and he –” to my utmost surprise, Daemian’s voice broke, interrupting his thought.  He cleared his throat and tried again.  “He … _broke_ Ayden with the Housebreakers.” 

Broken.  That seemed like a really good way of putting it.  I waited, leaning on the wall to see if he’d continue. 

“Broke him?  Like his wrist, you mean,” Lanzi said.  Smart girl, that Lanzi.  I’d always known it.  Neither of the others had noticed my wrist.  Truth be told, I often forgot about it myself.  It still hurt.  It had been healed long enough that it shouldn’t hurt any more, but either the Housebreakers had kept the pain fresh, or my first impression was right and it hadn’t healed properly.  I wondered if it was fixable or if it would always be semi-useless.

“His wrist?  No, the Housebreakers are rings that pass electricity into the body.  It causes intense pain, and they used to be used to break Pets who were unwilling, before the genetic manipulation took care of it for them.  I believe that’s what caused the burns around his wrists, neck, ankles, and…” 

I felt the blood drain out of my face.  Would he reveal that last place the ring had been to my _mother_ and my _best friend?_   I tried to get myself to stop him, but I couldn’t make myself move. 

“Traditionally,” he continued instead, much to my relief.  “The rings were used around every available limb.  On females, a garment was used instead of a ring.”  He hadn’t come out and said it, but I knew they would understand from what he did say.  They both gasped, and I was pretty sure that I could look around the corner and see them staring in the direction of the bathroom.  At least he hadn’t _said_ it, I told myself, and came around the corner.  Lanzi threw herself at me with a wail. 

“Oh, _Ayden,_ ” she said, practically crushing me. 

“Ayden, let me see your wrist,” Daemian said, interrupting the moment.  I held it up to him, wondering what he would make of it.  The hand was practically useless without the use of it.  “How long ago did you break it?”

I thought about it.  Days had been meaningless inside the Room.  I had no idea how long I’d been gone, and only knew that I’d broken it shortly after arriving...wherever he’d held me.  I told them that.  “I woke up with those rings on, and the first time he used them, I fell and broke it,” I said. 

“So it’s well healed,” Daemian said, frowning thoughtfully.  “I was afraid of that.  There may be a chance if we get to a doctor and ask them.  We Luminors are sturdy, however, and there is a good chance that he will be able to do nothing.”

I closed my eyes and wondered how long it would take for the scars of this to fade.  Lanzi coughed behind me, and I nearly jumped into Daemian’s arms.  I scowled at myself; I was no coward!  But those Housebreakers had been well-named.  I was a broken, ill-healed version of the Ayden who’d walked out of this house so long ago.  Then I remembered why I’d been rushing out in such a hurry that I hadn’t seen him until he had me.  “Lanzi!” She jumped, looking up at me with wide eyes.  “I heard you were in the hospital.  I was coming back to see you when he –”

She sighed.  “It was just a virus,” she said.  “Sniffles, a headache.  But they had to give me medicine for it or it wouldn’t have gotten better.  Ayden, that was ages ago.  Do you … even know how long you’ve been gone?  We thought you were dead!”  She lunged for me, and I nearly fell backwards to get away from her before I reminded myself that this was _Lanzi_.  She hadn’t even noticed, so caught up in her own grief that my reactions were passing her by. 

“Six months,” my mother said softly.  “Oh, Ayden.  We did think you were gone forever.  No one had seen you.  No one knew where you were.  There was absolutely nothing left of you.  No clues, just… nothing.” 

I saw how much my second disappearance had affected her then, and I felt a horrible sense of guilt.  There was absolutely nothing I could have done, of course, but… I hated seeing her so unhappy.  And I still hadn’t found Morgan.  And I was now months and months behind.  The guilt kept mounting.  “I’m so sorry,” I said.  “It wasn’t… on purpose.”

She laughed a little then.  “I know.  And I’m sorry, too.  For everything.”

Lanzi served up some dinner then, and I found I could eat it if I went slowly.  I still kept expecting random bursts of pain, and there was a phantom ache where the rings had sat.  It made me shudder as I remembered everything I’d done – mindlessly, driven out of myself by the Housebreakers and that… room. 

If I recovered from the damage the rings had done to my nervous system, and the psychological trauma of what basically amounted to rape – which I realised I still hadn’t shared with them; I thought at least Daemian could be trusted with something like that – and the broken wrist, I would be haunted by nightmares of that small metal room for the rest of my life. 

Dinner was an awkward affair, with no one talking and none of us quite able to meet one another’s eyes.  I finally succeeded in catching Daemian’s attention, and hopefully managed to convey that I needed to talk to him after dinner by jerking my head towards the bedroom.   Then I caught sight of the far wall, and realised that the water had dried in streaks and stains, the last time anyone attempted to wash it – which might very well have been me – and I had to put down my utensils and wash it again, before those stains drove me crazy all over again.  I could feel the bewildered stares of my mother and Lanzi on my back, but it only took Daemian a few moments of watching me haul the bucket out of the kitchen to realise what I was about.  It started the healing in me to hear him laugh heartily.  When I glanced over at them, my mother and Lanzi were staring at me as if I really had lost my mind all over again, and maybe it was just manifesting in a bizarre way? And Daemian was slumped over the table, his shoulders shaking with mirth. 

I smiled to myself.  I really had missed Daemian. 


	18. Chapter 18

I drew him aside after dinner – after I’d finished with the wall and was pleased that the streaks were gone – and asked him not to repeat what I was about to tell him.  “I just,” I said, and I felt the warmth that had come from dinner and the ancient and familiar routine of washing the walls leak out of me.  “I need to tell someone,” I said.  “I can’t tell them.  They wouldn’t understand.”

“I might not, either,” Daemian said.  “And Ayden.  Be aware that I might grow angry at what you tell me.  Please remember that I am not angry with you.”

“I’ll try,” I whispered, and then started at the beginning.  I told him everything I could remember, which admittedly wasn’t much.  But what I did recall was terrible.  “He would call me Clary,” I said.  Daemian’s eyes narrowed, and he glared holes into the far wall.  “It put him in a better… mood,” I choked out, and then the tears came, and I hated myself for them, but I must have stirred Daemian’s protective instincts because he gathered me – gently, and mindful of my injuries – into his arms and his lap, and he held me close while I wept for all the pain I’d endured at the hands of a madman.   “It put him in a better mood, he was easier to deal with, if he was happy… with me.  Pleased… with how I’d… behaved.”

I couldn’t say it.  The time was now, and the words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

“That’s what the Housebreakers are for, Ayden,” he said, not getting it. 

 _Don’t make me say it,_ I begged silently.  The puzzled expression continued.  I pulled myself away from him, withdrawing from his warmth in order to avoid the direct anger in his eyes, the anger I knew wouldn’t be directed at me, but I now had six months as a pleasure slave under my belt, and I knew there was nothing worse than an angry Master.  “If he was pleased with my … performance,” I ground out between clenched teeth, my eyes clamped shut so that I didn’t have to see him.  “In bed.”  And out of it.  And on the couch, and on the floor, and in the kitchen, and the bathroom, and the terrace…

I knew the moment he understood, because he swore violently and threw himself off the bed.  I felt disgusting and ashamed of myself for daring to touch him.  “I’m sorry,” I said suddenly.  “I couldn’t… stop him.”  And at some point, had started encouraging him because as I’d just said, he was easier to deal with when he was happy. 

“Do not be sorry,” he said, but there was something about his expression that absolutely terrified me.  I felt like the life I could have had – before – was crumbling in front of my eyes. 

“That’s,” I said.  “That’s pretty much everything.  Um.  There was a lot of nothing while I was there.”  Endless days of starvation, sex, beatings, the pain of the rings, and worse than everything put together – that small room.  I’d seen my death in that room, and Lumi help Mathiru if I ever got my hands on him again.  “Thank you,” I said.  “For listening.”  I stood up and was inching towards the door.  “I really appreciate it,” I burst out, and then fled the room. 

I had to lean on the wall for support, in the hallway.  My whole body was shaking and I felt _lost._   Lanzi was coming down the hall, and I saw the moment she saw me because her expression shifted from one of pensive worry to sadness.  I saw a lot in that one single glance and I backed away from her.  Since Daemian was still in my bedroom, I had no secret place to run to.  But I felt…dirty, still and I didn’t want it to rub off on her. 

“Ayden?”

“I’m okay,” I said, too fast because she kept coming closer, not believing me.  “I don’t,” I said.  “I just need a little bit of time.  I don’t want to…” infect anyone with my stupid.  Dirty these beautiful people with my presence.  “I just need some time,” I said again.

“Why?”

Was everyone going to make me say it?  “I’m not good enough anymore,” I whispered loudly at her, frustrated with their incomprehension.  I felt like a black cloud of filth rolled off me, and now that they _knew_ it would only be a matter of time before they saw it too.  I had to get out of this house.

“Ayden, you’ve said some stupid things in your life, but that has got to take the multi-million credit award!”  Her hands on her hips, she still advanced on me.  I could either touch her, push her away, or run the other direction.  I didn’t know what I wanted to do, except that it didn’t involve her getting any nearer to me. 

“Just go away!”

She stopped.  I couldn’t read her expression, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. 

“Fine,” she said, spun on her heel, and left me in the hallway.  I sank down to the floor, shaking all over.  I felt like I’d dodged a bullet, but I wasn’t sure who it was meant for.  I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. 

From the other room, I could hear her shouting at the others.  I couldn’t make out what she was saying until one sentence lifted above the rest, crystal clear. 

“He’s not good enough!”

Ice dropped into my stomach.  It didn’t matter that I’d said it first, I knew I wasn’t.  But for some reason, hearing her repeat it, in that tone…

I couldn’t take their pitying looks anymore.  I couldn’t stay here with those words hanging between us.  Leaving Daemian in my room, and the girls in the sitting room, I slipped out the front door without a word to any of them.  I knew with all the conviction in my soul that they’d be better off without me here, fouling things up.  I’d heard Lanzi raise her voice before but never like that. 

And the look on Daemian’s face when I told him and he flung himself away like he couldn’t bear to be near me…

That expression would haunt me for a very long time. 

I fled, trying to outrun the weight of memories. 


	19. Chapter 19

I didn’t know how long I’d been on the streets.  I couldn’t remember where I was or how I’d ended up there, and might have just wandered, lost, forever if not for one thing still echoing in my mind. 

 _Morgan._   Somewhere deep in my soul, I knew I had to find Luminor Morgan, though I couldn’t remember why.  I figured that if I did, he’d have the answers I needed. 

Although I didn’t remember anything of before – it was just a giant cloud in my mind – I learned to love discovering things about myself.  Like the way I instinctively knew how to avoid detection when I was lifting food, where to hide when I needed a warm place to sleep, and how to quickly, silently, and almost-cleanly get the things I needed – like clothes, or food if I couldn’t get it fresh – from refuse bins. 

I also found out that someone, in the misty part of my life, had taught me how to fight.  I learned or remembered that I was in the city of Luminesca, but although I thought I remembered being somewhere worse, it wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of virtue that I’d somehow been expecting.  My first run-in with a street gang taught me that much, and although there’d been five or six of them, and only one  of me – and the idea of touching them filled me with a disgust that bordered on fear – I still managed to take down three or four of them before the others turned tail and fled. 

I couldn’t remember my name, but among the gangs I earned the nickname Razor, after the long knives the Luminors carried to enforce the peace.  When I asked one of them about it, he said they called me Razor – or Raze – because like the air-razors, I came out of nowhere, cut quick and clean, and did only as much damage as I had to.  I enjoyed the idea of having so much status in the underworld of Luminesca, and several gangs sought me out to either challenge me – and if I knew they were coming for that, I’d hide, because I had no desire to touch people any more than I had to – or swear loyalty to me. 

I must have had half the street-gangs of Luminesca under my word when another, more powerful leader finally caught up to me.  It was his second-in-command that found me, sleeping – and for some reason, I never even heard him coming up to me.  I didn’t know he was there at all until he was shaking me awake.  I hadn’t touched anyone – or been touched – in so long that I was rolling away from him in abject terror before I’d even come fully awake.

“You’re the Razor?” he asked, voice low and gravelly.  I blinked at him, looking at the five feet of space that separated us.  He was between me and the open end of the little alley I was in, and I’d have to touch him again to get by if I wanted to escape that way.  The walls behind me were twenty or more meters high; one of the reasons I’d chosen this alley to sleep in, because there was no chance of anyone sneaking up on me from behind. 

“Who are you?”

“They call me Nik,” he said.  “Are you the Razor?”

I stared at him warily for a moment.  “They call me that,” I said finally. 

“Come with me,” he said after an equal pause.  “The Lumin needs to see you.”

I felt a stab of fear.  The Lumin was known to me; he ran the single largest street gang in Luminesca.  He was rumoured to be ruthless, powerful, and terrifying; of all the people I never wanted to see, the Lumin was highest on that list.  “Very well,” I said, because as scared as I was, you didn’t turn down an ‘invitation’ to see the Lumin.  One of the gangs I’d picked apart a few months ago had had a run-in with him, and their leader had been found in pieces by the Luminors.  It had happened so soon after my confrontation with them that I had spent the next three weeks in paralysed fear that the Lumin was coming after me next, but he hadn’t appeared.  This was what I got for relaxing my guard.  I scrambled to my feet, careful to keep half an eye on Nik while I gathered the few things I didn’t want to leave behind. 

He waited patiently, even backed up a few steps while I got my stuff, and then without a word he spun in place and made his way out of the alley.  He was silent as a ghost, and I envied him the skill; my feet crackled and crunched over the littered debris I’d left there as an early warning system – one that had apparently failed, since he was walking as silently out of the alley as he had into it.  There was no question of following him; an air-razor hung at his hip, turned off for the moment but I had no doubts that he knew how to use it. 

We dodged through the seedier neighbourhoods, avoiding the well-lit and well-populated streets.  I don’t know how long we walked, but the lights were coming up around us by the time we reached what looked to be an abandoned warehouse.  The door opened at our approach, and Nik motioned for me to go first.  I kept my hand on the little stiletto I’d taken off one of the other gang-leaders, but didn’t dare draw it – I was so keenly aware of that air-razor at Nik’s hip that I felt like I could hear it rustling against his leg, warning me not to make any sudden movements.  The man who’d opened the door closed it behind Nik and then hurried to the front of our little procession, leading me through the maze of hallways until we reached what I immediately thought of as the throne room.

Indeed, there was a large, comfortable-looking plush chair sitting on a raised dais at the far end of it, much like a throne might be.  Seated on the chair was the most exotic looking man I’d ever seen.  His hair, spilling down his back and over one arm of the chair, was black as night and might have trailed close to the ground if he were to stand up.  His skin was a glowing golden brown, and the only place I’d ever seen skin that colour was on my own body.  It wasn’t until we came closer, cutting through the crowd of people lounging on little couches and rugs and other chairs that I realised his eyes were a gleaming gold, like archaic coins set into his face. 

He didn’t see us approaching until we were nearly at the dais, and then I saw some undefinable expression flash over his face.  He leapt to his feet, startling me again with his height; he seemed enormous to my eyes, and there was no doubt in my mind: this was the Lumin. 

His mouth fell open, and he said “Ayden?”

The word was a hoarse whisper, and beside me, Nik gave a startled jerk.  It was the most I’d seen him react to anything so far.  I was at a total loss as to what to do; this was the _Lumin_ I was standing in front of.  I bent one knee and bowed my head, wondering if he was about to chop me into little pieces with the air-razor I saw hanging at his side.  If he didn’t, Nik was in a primed position to begin the work.  To my other side, the guard who’d brought us in was also kneeling, and he nudged me.

“The Lumin is asking your name,” he whispered.  I glanced up at the Lumin; his expression hadn’t changed from that bewildered, awestruck look.  He seemed to be staring at me in much the same way I wanted to stare at him.  Black hair was so unusual, but that was nothing on his skin – so like mine! – and his _eyes._  

“I have no name,” I said finally.  “They call me Raze, Razor.” 

He stared for a few more seconds, and then glanced sharply at Nik.  “Niko,” he barked.  “Get them out of here.”

With practiced efficiency Nik began shuffling the avidly-watching crowd from the room.  I didn’t take my eyes off the Lumin, but I listened keenly to the sound of them filing out, some grumbling at being denied the spectacle.  I felt the blood drain out of my face as I realised they were probably being denied the pleasure of watching me die.

At least I would have that much dignity when I went. 

When the door clanged shut at last, I risked a glance around the massive room.  The empty chairs and couches stood in silent witness to us, the Lumin standing on the dais and looking like a god.  I wondered if he’d gotten the name Lumin because he was Lumi’s escort; I always imagined that if the patron goddess of Luminesca _had_ an escort, he would be much like the Lumin – darkness personified. 

Nik stood by the door, but it was far enough from us that he was a guard more than an eavesdropper.  The Lumin came down from his dais, and I had to crane my neck back to see into his face.  Then I realised that this might be rude, and since I had no idea why he wanted me here, I dropped my gaze. 

“Ayden,” he said again.  The word stirred inside my head, but I just couldn’t put it with anything.  The mist in my mind roiled and throbbed.  “They said it was you, but I had no idea. I’m so very sorry.” 

He came towards me, and I braced for a blow.  When it came it was more devastating than anything I’d ever experienced, because it wasn’t a swing with his fist or a buzzing arc by the air-razor.

It came in the form of his arms wrapped around me in an embrace. 

I stiffened, not only uncomfortable but petrified.  My filth was going to rub off on him and then everyone would know.  He would be sullied.  It took me a few moments of numb shock to get the thought from my brain into my limbs, but I wrenched myself away from him.  “You can’t touch me,” I blurted out.  I no longer remembered _why_ – it was hidden, with the rest of my life, behind that fog in my mind – but I knew with an unswerving conviction that I wasn’t worthy of something like that, that I was dirty and foul and would spread that foulness around me like the plague. 

“Ayden,” he said.  “They said you were… but I didn’t believe them.” 

I mentally filled in his blank, wondering which one of the words he wasn’t saying: filthy, ruined, disgusting.  “Are you calling me Ayden?”  It was a highly unusual name; much too short, and a strange sound. 

“You are Ayden,” he said.  “What happened?  Wait, you are not required to answer that.”

That was good; I had no idea what he was talking about.  “Are you going to kill me?”

The look on his face as he spun around to face me was startling both in its strength and its incomprehensibility.  “By the Lights, no!”

I blinked.  “Then why did you call me here?” 

He blinked right back.  “You are my son,” he said.  It was like a revelation in my mind; bombs went off and stars exploded but it all took place inside the fog.  Somewhere deep inside, this information was important.  I snarled at my own inability.  “You may remember me as Morgan,” he added, and this time the eruption was in the conscious part of my mind as I realised that the Lumin was the Morgan I’d been looking for all this time. 

“I’ve been searching for you,” I said.  He looked startled.  “I can’t… I don’t remember _why,_ though.”  If he was my father, that might explain a few things – the hair, the skin… we could be related.  I was willing to accept that we were, while I tried to find out _why_ I needed to find him.  It had been the one thing left over from my previous life, and the only thing I could remember. 

Where I had come from, why I was living in alleys, how I’d learned to take care of myself – all of it was a blank, hidden within the shroud of my own mind.  I’d woken up one morning with no recollection of where or _who_ I was, and only one thought in my mind – _Find Morgan._

Well, now I had found him but I was no closer to discovering anything about myself. 

“That is good enough for now,” he said.  “Now we will search for _you_ – what happened, and how you came to be here.  I thought that after the life you lead in Sublucida, this would have been the first place you came but they tell me that the Razor – you – only appeared on the streets three months ago.  Where have you been for the last year?  What have you been doing?  You haven’t been back to Sublucida, and you only came to the streets three months ago, and that leaves a great deal of time unaccounted for.  Your mother has gone missing as well, though I suppose I could go and ask Arania if she knows.”

He was thinking out loud, the stream of thoughts not directed at me, but I couldn’t help – obviously – overhearing him and something struck a chord.  “I think… I remember Sublucida,” I said.  He glanced at me, remembering I was there.

“Then would you like to accompany me back for a few days?  I will put word out with my men that you have joined with me, and did you realise that together we rule the underworld of Luminesca?”  The thought amused him.  “Just what I wanted for my only son,” he muttered.  “Lord and ruler of gangs and thugs.”

“I have a crew,” I said suddenly, surprising us both.  “In Sublucida.”  As the words came out, I realised that part of the fog had rolled back.  Whatever was keeping my memories from me, it wasn’t associated with Sublucida.  “And I knew Arania… I think.” 

“I should think so.  Arania is the mother of your best friend.”  The mild reproach in his voice shamed me. 

“I’m sorry,” I said.  “I just can’t remember.”

His features softened.  “Don’t worry,” he said.  “It’ll come back to you when you need it to.”  He raised his head and his voice, looking over at Nik who was still lurking by the door.  “Niko, I need you to put word out that the Razor and I have joined forces.”  He paused for a moment, just long enough for Nik to assimilate this and laugh.  “Then my son and I will be returning to Sublucida for a short time.  We’ll both need new clothes; I assume you can handle this?”

Nik nodded, coming closer.  “Clothes for the both of you for a trip to Sublucida,” he said.  “And the pants-pissing news that the Razor and the Lumin have joined forces.  Got it, Boss.”  He edged off, still chuckling. 

“Ayden,” he said, and my head turned before I’d registered the name.  “Oh, son,” he murmured, and came closer like he was about to embrace me again.  I backed up nervously, and he paused.  “Oh son,” he said again.  “I’m so very sorry for whatever happened to you.” 

“I am too,” I said, and startled myself as I realised it was true.  I wished I knew why I was so afraid of being touched, and then realised that the answer to that question was probably the entire reason for the fog.  


	20. Chapter 20

We made ready for a trip to Sublucida with Nik’s help, and to my surprise, the second-in-command boldly told Morgan the Lumin that he was going with us or we weren’t going.

The Lumin’s reputation was so fearsome that I half-expected this news to be met with a quick beheading and was probably more shocked when he doubled over with laughter instead.  “Oh Niko,” he said.  “Of course you are.” 

And that decided the matter.  I shied away from every shadow, hating myself, and tried to ignore the speculative looks Nik and Morgan were giving me whenever they thought my head was turned.  We came to the Bridge of Shadows that connected Luminesca with the under-city of Sublucida, and halfway across were stopped by Luminors.  I bolted when they appeared suddenly from the guardhouse, and might have gotten away if not for Nik’s quick reflexes.  Slung over his shoulder like a sack of grains wasn’t the most noble or comfortable of positions, not to mention my innate dislike of being touched at all – such a full-body contact was enough to turn my stomach.  And it reeked of helplessness. 

“Luminor Morgantran,” the Lumin said.  “Accompanied by Luminor Nikodaemus and my son Ayden.   We’re just visiting Sublucida to find some old friends.”

“Luminors,” the guards said respectfully.  I started wiggling and hissed at Nik to put me down.  One of the Guards disappeared back into the guardhouse, and the rest returned to their positions, and I thought we were home-free when suddenly someone burst out the door like the hounds of Darkness were after him. 

“Luminor Morgantran and Aydenlan Claryson!” he shouted.  Nik paused, and I froze. 

“Yes?” the Lumin’s aplomb was admirable as he turned coolly to assess the newcomer.

“I am Luminor Mormorran,” he said, wheezing slightly.  “I authorized Claryson’s entry into Luminesca a year ago.  He said he was looking for a family friend, and I left them with Luminor Daemian.  Clarianne and her servant Alanziara were also taken into his household, and he recently left word with me that he was to be notified if either of you were seen.  Do you wish to visit him yourself or should I just send word?”

This gave the Lumin pause, and he glared at me for a moment.  I glared back as well as I was able from Nik’s shoulder, wondering what he was about to start blaming me for now.  “You may send word,” he said.  “We have business in Sublucida for now, but we will want to visit with Luminor Daemian as soon as we return.  Please inform him.”

Mormorran bowed respectfully and I looked at the Lumin with something like respect.  I didn’t know if they were acting like this because he was a Luminor – but no, they were too, so it didn’t make sense! – and then I heard one of the guards murmuring about the Lumin and realised that despite being Luminors themselves, they were probably of a lower rank and they’d heard of his position as the highlord of the underworld.  It amused me to be seen with him, and I wondered if they’d put all the pieces together.  He clearly recognised me – I’d never heard the name Aydenlan Claryson before, but he’d been referring to me – and Morgan the Lumin was clearly recognisable by everyone.  There was something nagging at the back of my mind, however, and we’d crossed the bridge – Nik still hadn’t put me down, apparently finding it easier to carry me, and I was finding it easier to deal with touching him the longer he forced me into it – before I put my finger down on it.

“Lumin,” I said.  We paused, and he turned to face me, forcing Nik to drop me to the ground.  I took a few steps away from him, my stomach feeling bruised and my limbs trembling from sustaining a nameless fear.  “I think… He called me Claryson, but I don’t… and I think… aren’t… won’t…”  I took a deep breath.  “I’m not allowed to be here,” I said at last.  “Clary was… my mother?” At his nod, I continued.  “They said … I remember… That there’s something about her that…”

It was Nik who caught on to what I was saying.  “The boy’s Luminor and Pet,” he said suddenly.  “If those guards figure it out, they’ll haul him off to the Oubliette and we’ll never see him again.”

I felt a sudden chill at the mention of the Oubliette.  Even newborn babies knew what that was, and if there was anything I was more afraid of than being touched, it was being locked into a small room for the rest of my life.  The Lumin’s expression darkened perceptibly, so much that I actually glanced up to see if the lights were still working.  There was no natural light in Sublucida, and no weather; I’d gotten caught in a drenching rain a few weeks ago while sleeping and realised I’d missed the steel and concrete sky of Sublucida.  At the time, I had no idea I’d ever been there and it had puzzled me, but now, looking around at the almost familiar sub-city, I realised I felt like I’d come home. 

It wasn’t enough to counteract the rush of terror I was feeling at the prospect of being tossed into the Oubliette and forgotten. 

“Simple enough,” the Lumin replied.  “They won’t figure it out.  You know where Arania lives?”  At Nik’s nod, the Lumin gave a chilled smile.  “Take him there.  I’ll catch up.” He stalked away, melting into the shadows until I couldn’t see him anymore. 

“Come along then,” Nik said.  “Don’t make me carry you.” 

I leapt away from him, ready to do just about anything to keep him from touching me again.  He almost reminded me of something, and I didn’t want him near me.  “Where did he go?” I asked, hoping to distract him from the idea of picking me back up. 

“He’s going to make sure they never connect you with him or Miss Clary,” Nik said, and then set his face in an expression so severe that I was half-afraid to say anything else to him.  We walked in silence for what seemed like a long time.  Accustomed as I was to the Chronokeepers all over Luminesca, it was a little bizarre to not know what the time was.  We were halfway into a residential neighbourhood when the Lumin suddenly reappeared at my side.  I jumped half a kilometer before I realised it was him, and had trouble putting my stiletto back into its sheath along my leg after recognising him.

“That’s a good habit to have,” he commented, but there was a frown on his face that disturbed me and I wondered what I’d done to put it there.   “You still remember nothing of … before?”

I thought about that.  “The Luminor Mormorran recognised me,” I said.  “He called me Aydenlan Claryson, but that’s the first time I’ve heard that name.  I thought I was Ayden?”

“You are Ayden,” the Lumin said.  “And you are Clary’s son, as well as mine, but I was never as famous as Clary.  The best moment of my life was helping her escape from that son of a bastard, Mathiru she was chained to.  The second best moment was when she agreed to marry me.”  He shot me a speculative look that I almost missed, because the name Mathiru had filled me with terror.  I was shaking and my breath came short. 

Chains.  Mathiru.  I felt the fog in my mind churning, and I couldn’t make my legs work. 

“Ayden?”

“What’s wrong with the boy?”

I was only peripherally aware of their concern.  “Mathiru,” I said.  “I know that name.”  I couldn’t breathe.  Chains.  Mathiru.  Housebreakers.   I studied the scars on my wrists, knowing there were similar ones around my ankles and my neck.  The Lumin caught sight of them and grabbed my hand.  I couldn’t even summon the energy to pull away from him, focused as I was on getting myself back under control.  Chains.  Mathiru.  A small room.  Housebreakers. 

I felt a scream bubbling up in my throat and clamped my mouth shut around it, even as I struggled to get enough air to clear my head. 

“What the Darkness happened to you, Ayden?”

Memories.  I couldn’t have answered him if I wanted to, because the memories were coming back.  Why I was filthy.  What I had done in Mathiru’s country house.  Why I ran away from Lanzi and –

_Daemian._

“Ayden!”

When I came back to my senses, I was being cradled by Nik as Morgan Lumin studied my wrists and face.  “He’s awake,” Nik said, unnecessarily. 

“By the lights and darkness, Ayden, you’ve got to tell me what happened to you.”  The fear in Morgan’s voice was _for_ me, not _of_ me.  I appreciated the distinction right then because I wasn’t sure I could handle it if he was afraid of me as well.  Or disgusted by me. 

I couldn’t tell him.  Daemian’s face as he threw himself away from me, Lanzi’s voice when she said I wasn’t worthy… I had just found my father, and I couldn’t lose him, too.  I had to … lie.

“I’m sorry,” I said.  “I… Mathiru.”  Even saying his name made me feel ill.  “He…took me.”

“I’ll kill him.”

I thought for a moment that my hearing was going, and then I realised that my hearing was fine and the two of them had spoken in unison.  I glanced up at Nik, wondering why he was angry.  I felt bewildered, lost, and just wanted things to start making sense again. 

“Wasn’t his first,” Nik said after a lengthy silence.  “Remember I told you about the rumours of his Auction?  Seems he’s probably got more money than you.  Miss Clary won’t have to worry, anyway.”

It took me a few seconds to assimilate that, with all the information now swirling around in my brain, and then I realised they’d leapt to exactly the right conclusion – the one I _didn’t_ want them reaching.  “Not like that!” I said, my voice high.  “Not at all.”  Except it was exactly like that.  I couldn’t have told my mother, though, and I’d met her before my memory lapses and had some idea of what she was like.  The only thing I knew about Morgan was that he was honourable, in his way, and he’d married my mother.  He’d allowed her to become pregnant with me, knowing that the child would have been aborted or taken away in Luminesca.  So he had some disregard for rules, but he’d also dismembered a man who crossed him.  There was no way I was going to tell my father. 

 _Especially_ not after Lanzi’s reaction.  I couldn’t even bring myself to think _his_ name, and I wondered at what point he’d started to mean so much.  It was one-sided, and I couldn’t ever go back there anyway.  I realised now, with my mind totally clear, that the fog had been my minds way of protecting me.  Shielding me from the knowledge of his reaction.  Of Lanzi’s words.  It was too much.  I was too damaged, too _broken_ to be normal again.  The best I could hope for was to go back to Luminesca and live out my days as the Razor, leader of the gangs I’d whipped, or stay here in Sublucida and get my old crew back. 

“He kidnapped you?”

“Those look like Housebreaker scars,” Nik added, almost on top of Morgan’s words.  I nodded to both of them. 

“Yes,” I said, and they understood.

“ _Why_?”  I hated myself for causing that much pain in Morgan’s voice – I couldn’t remember him as a father, but I was learning to respect him as a man. 

“Claryson,” I said.  I was shaking and cold, but Nik let me go when I pulled away from him.  “Clary’s _son._   I think he hates me.”

“I could kill him for you,” Nik said, and there was something odd about his voice.  I glanced at him and realised he was beginning to slide into the rage. 

“No,” Morgan said.  “I need you here with me.  We’ll find him as soon as we talk to Arania, and find Daemian and Clary.” 

My gaze swung around to Morgan’s face like a compass finding true north.  He was making the slide, as well.  I shuddered, freezing cold despite the warmth of the air.  _They believed me._   But as soon as they found my mother, she’d tell them – and I couldn’t bear that.  Was there _anywhere_ I could go where they couldn’t find me and know? 

A tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered _Oubliette._   I was already going crazy – what was one more little room?  And there, no one else would know what had happened. What I’d done. 

I resolved to wait until they found Arania, to make sure she was still okay and then run away again.  I was getting tired of running, but I had to find somewhere I could go.  And I couldn’t stop shaking.


	21. Chapter 21

We found our way to Arania’s house; Daunell opened almost before Nik could knock a second time, and let out a whoop.  I gathered my courage, knowing that what I was about to do would tear everyone apart again.  Before they remembered me again, I took advantage of Daunell and Arania’s warm and joyous welcome of Morgan and Nik, and slipped away into the alley.  I’d grown up running these streets, and I knew exactly where to go to get away.  In much less time than it had taken to get here, I’d reached the Twilight Stairs; kind of a back-door way to get into Luminesca.  I’d found it so long ago when I’d planned to sneak into Luminesca, before my father’s disappearance – to the streets of Luminesca, running a gang, because he knew I ran a crew here in Sublucida and that’s what he expected me to do in Luminesca as well – gave me an opportunity to get in legally. 

Looking back, I wished I could have snuck in the first time.  They could have thrown me in the Oubliette, and I’d never have met Daemian.  Never known all the wonderful things I had learned, and I’d never have been broken like this.  I’d just have gone quietly crazy, in the place I’d do the least harm, and no one would have ever heard from me again. 

I climbed the stairs, and stopped on the viewing platform.  Before the Bridge had been built, the stairs were the main entrance from Sublucida into Luminesca, and since they were so long there were frequent rest-areas.  This one looked out on the Bridge, and I saw a crowd of Luminors pulsing around the guard-house.  Morgan had slipped back to the guards to take care of them, but I didn’t know what he’d done.  Seeing all the commotion now made me wonder exactly what he’d done. 

I didn’t have time to worry about it, though.  I kept going, and eventually found myself in one of the familiar alleys.  The door had been nearly obliterated by buildings sprouting up, and I’d have bet half my virgin-price that no one even knew those stairs still existed, much less still connected an unguarded entrance into Luminesca. 

“Ayden!”

Hearing my name – so familiar, so unrecognizable! – I whirled.  My heart leapt up into my throat and then dropped down to the vicinity near my feet as I recognised Daemian.  Of all the people I never wanted to see again! 

Because that wasn’t true.  I was thrilled to see him, I wanted nothing more than to leap into his arms and never let go again.  And he didn’t seem too disgusted right then, but he was probably stirred up by whatever was happening on the bridge, and I didn’t want to wait for him to remember all the foul things I’d done.  I sprinted in the opposite direction, letting the growing crowd swallow me. 

“ _Ayden!”_  

I kept going. 

I’d never seen the Oubliette before, but rumour had it on the outskirts of Luminesca.  I was close enough to the edge of the city that I could make it without difficulty, and then I’d find one of the guard stations, admit my parentage, and have them take me there.  That was the plan, anyway. 

I tripped over a pile of – something – and went sprawling, my ankle throbbing dangerously.  I didn’t think it was broken but it might have been sprained or twisted, and either way I wasn’t going any further tonight.  It wasn’t but a few moments before I was surrounded by some grimy men who looked like they’d been living rougher than me. 

“Lookee here, boys!  Seems like we’ve found a runaway Pet.”  They laughed as they came closer.  “We should teach him what we do to Pets in these parts, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” one of them shouted.   “Retraining!”

“A lesson!”

“I’m not a Pet!” I yelled, but before I could get to my feet or reach for my stiletto, two of them had jumped me.  A blow across the face stunned me long enough for them to take the knife, and when my vision cleared three of them were holding my arms and legs while the fourth was slowly undoing his trousers.  I realised what they intended to do, and panic whited my mind out. 

I fought, but they outmassed me.  They eagerly waited, each taking turns, and when they were through with me I didn’t have the energy to blink, much less run away.  Fluids were leaking out of me and my clothes were in tatters.  Still laughing, they left me there in that pile of junk.  I could _never_ go back to Daemian now.  Shaking, I gathered all of my strength and pulled the ruins of my clothes back on.  The rage hovered just out of reach; I didn’t even have the energy to get up and yell.  I thought I was going to die here, alone and assaulted in a dirty alleyway. 

I slept, or fell unconscious; I never knew which.  When I woke again it was brightening with daylight, and I heard their hated voices in the background.  I’d brought this on myself; if I hadn’t been running so fast, I would have noticed the trash I’d tripped on.  If I’d just gone with him in the first place, I wouldn’t have needed to run.  Even knowing I’d deserved what they’d done didn’t make it any easier to deal with.  When I heard their voices, coming back, I found the energy from somewhere.  They’d kicked my stiletto out of their way, but neglected to take it with them.  I picked it up, and dragged myself up the side of the building, leaning on the walls for support. 

We saw one another at the same time.  In the full light I realised they were much uglier than I’d first thought.  Accustomed to the designer-prettiness of the Pets and the rugged beauty of the Luminors, the real, un-manipulated faces of the general people was disgusting. 

“Look Bo,” one of them said.  “Our little Pet’s still here.  You’d think he’d have learned his lesson last night.  Think we should teach him again?”

“That pretty little thing,” Bo said.  “Sure.  I ain’t had such a good lay since your mother, Saun.” 

I felt myself sliding into the rage, and for the first time, welcomed it. 

When I came back to myself I was standing knee deep in a pile of gore.  My clothes, already ruined by them the night before, were soaked with blood and other things I didn’t want to think about.  One thing was for sure – they wouldn’t be messing with anyone else.  What I hadn’t counted on was people actually living in that trash heap.

When the Luminors came, I was still in the alley, the rage depleted and the cold taking over.  My tattered clothing wasn’t enough to keep me warm, and I was huddled at the back of the alley, as far from the bodies as I could get. 

“That’s the one,” someone said, and I looked up to realise they were there.  “He looks like a Pet,” the woman said to the two Luminors.  Neither of them were familiar to me.  “But I saw it with my own eyes, he went into a Luminor Rage.”

“Sir,” one of the Luminors called.  “Did you do this?”

“Don’t ask him that, I _saw_ it!” the woman shrieked.  I realised that I didn’t need to find the Oubliette – all I had to do was tell these two that my father had been a Luminor, my mother a Pet, and they’d haul me there before I could get another word out. 

“Yes,” I said, raising my voice with an effort.  I tried to stand up, but my legs refused to take my weight.  The sudden motion, harmless as it was, put both Luminors on guard and they drew their air-razors.  “Yes, I did it,” I said again, and tried again.  One of them put his razor away and came up to me, arm extended to help me up.  I threw myself away from him so violently – an automatic reaction – that I’d bumped into the far wall before either of us realised I was moving. 

“You’ll need to come with us for questioning,” the Luminor said. 

“I can’t,” I whispered.  “I can’t… stand up.”  If not for the wall supporting my weight, I’d never have stood in the first place.  My ankle throbbed in time with my pulse and my whole body protested every movement I made. 

“We will bring you by force if we have to,” he said, his voice still gentle.  Just a warning. 

I bared my teeth.  “Don’t touch me,” I said.  My stiletto was still at the mouth of the alley where I’d dropped it, and then I realised I was contemplating attacking them rather than letting them lay hands on me. 

“I think they assaulted him,” the other Luminor said.  The woman nodded her head, eager to help.

“I saw that too,” she said.  “Last night he came running down here from nowhere and fell.  They caught him.  Thought he was a runaway Pet.  So did I until I came out to hang up my washing and saw what he did to those men.  One of them was my nephew’s best friend from the Primaries,” she added plaintively.  “You don’t think he’s one of those Luminor mongrels, do you?”

While the Luminor and I sized each other up, I lent half an ear to the conversation going on at the other end of the alley.  The other Luminor shook his head.  “No, ma’am.  Mongrels don’t live into their teens, and he’s close to twenty if I’m not mistaken.  It’s possible he’s part Luminor, especially if he went into a rage…”  He looked down at what was left of the bodies and visibly swallowed.

This was my chance.  I couldn’t implicate my father, and had to just hope that he and Daemian would protect my mother.  “I am, though,” I said.  “My mother was Clarianne.”  I couldn’t bring myself to say _that name._  

I didn’t have to.  When I didn’t follow it up, the other Luminor gasped.  “Mat’s old Pet.  We heard rumours she was pregnant, but that was ages ago.”  He eyed me speculatively.  “How old are you?”

How old _was_ I?  I’d lost a lot of time, and hadn’t bothered to keep track.  “Eighteen or nineteen,” I said.  “I don’t exactly know.” 

The Luminor closest to me rubbed his chin.  “Seems about the right age.  And your father was a Luminor, you said?” 

The penalty to Luminors for engendering a child with a Pet was death.  I couldn’t do that to my father, but I suddenly saw a light break through the horizon.  “Mat-” I stumbled over the name, and was almost sick to think of it.  “Mathiru,” I gasped finally.  “He was my father.”

I watched comprehension dawn on both their faces.  It might have been funny in any other circumstances, but I could feel blood running down my legs and my stomach was churning, and my ankle was visibly swelling – I was either going to be sick or pass out again if I so much as blinked too hard.  I watched both their mouths fall open slowly as they took in this information.

“Get back to Lumi and report this,” the Luminor closest to me snapped.  “I’m going to take him to the Medics and get him checked out.”  He reached for me, and before I could tell him to get away, I was sick and then gone.

 

I woke up thoroughly sick of passing out.  Panic leapt through me like lightning when I realised I didn’t know where I was. 

“Calm down, boy,” said a voice, and the way the order was given I had no choice.  My heart stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest, but I didn’t think even an order could have beaten back the terror I felt at waking in a strange place with a person who knew to give Pet-orders.  I felt sick to my stomach again, despite knowing there was nothing in it to come up if I got sick again.  I tried to sit up, but there were ties around my wrists and ankles that kept me from going anywhere, and memories of the Housebreakers overwhelmed the order to be calm. 

I felt a tiny prick of pain in my neck and the unfamiliar room grew dim and hazy.  A man – not a Luminor, not a Pet – wearing a long white jacket bustled away from me.  “Ought to have come here straight away,” he muttered.  I could still see him and make out what he was saying, though whatever he’d given me had drained away the panic and made me feel calmer than I should.  I could still feel the restraints around my wrists, though the panic that should have brought on was distant and muted.  My thoughts felt sluggish and I found I couldn’t really be bothered with anything.  A mild sense of curiousity kept me looking at the medic. 

“Horribly used,” the medic said to someone out of my sight.  “You claim there were four or five bodies in the pile he left?  I’m not surprised, not if he’s got a Luminor for a father.  Some genes get passed down no matter how much work we do against it.  Frankly I’m surprised there was anything left of them to identify.  Oh.  Oh!  Half Pet, you say?”  He spun around and gave me a piercing look.  “Ah, yes, I can see it now that you’ve pointed it out.  Most, most unusual.  However did he survive?  Well what are you doing hanging around here?  Get on it, I want to know!”

The medic waved off whoever he’d been talking to – and as I craned my neck I realised he was wearing an ear-sized tele-unit that connected to the glass that separated my room from the others.  “Where am I?” I asked.  It came out slurred, and the medic bustled over to me, surprised. 

“You’re still awake?  Most unusual,” he muttered.  “A dose of that should have put you out for the next few hours.  Ah well, half Pet.  Always react strangely.  And how is it that you’re so old?”

I waited, silent, while he poked and prodded me with a variety of instruments, muttering to himself the whole time.

“Most unusual,” he said again.  I got the impression that he enjoyed being able to poke at me.  “Very well-known fact that the offspring of Luminors and Pets don’t make it.  Oldest one we have is nearly thirteen and she’s half wild.”

I wondered if by half wild he meant they’d pulled her off the streets.  I longed to talk to her, to see if she was anything like me.  “Where am I?” I asked again.  “Who… who are you?” The more I concentrated, the clearer my mind got.  The panic was still far away, but I could think again. 

“You’re in the Citadel, boy.  I am Doctor Hedelforth, in charge of all of the genetic manipulation that goes on in this city.  They brought you to me because you are in desperate need of decent medical attention and they say you claim to be the offspring of Clarianne and Mathiru.  Yet, you bear the scars of Housebreakers, and those have been outlawed for centuries.  They are also relatively new.  I may be able to mitigate your sentence in the Oubliette in exchange for information.  Ah, here comes Aura now.  Aura my girl, I’d like you to meet – what did you say your name was?”

I looked carefully at the girl who’d carried in a tray of food – her eyes were huge in her face, Pet-like and soft, and were the most astonishing shade of green I’d ever seen in eyes.  But there was a hardness in her body and a lithe grace that was reminiscent of the Luminors.  This could be no one but the other girl who’d outlived the usual span of five years.  “Ayden,” I said, and tried to sit up.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone on my back, especially not while I was tied down like an animal. 

“Ayden and Aura,” the doctor muttered.  “Fantastic!  Yes, Aura, this is Ayden.  Ayden my boy, this is my adopted daughter Aura.  She doesn’t talk – to me, at any rate – and she’s skittish as a colt.  Hopefully the two of you will help me answer the question as to why Luminors and Pets can’t have living children.  So much easier on everyone to just abort the things in utero, you know, but some parents insist that their child will be different, and then when we have to haul the thing off to the Oubliette they scream and cry and it’s most unsettling.  No, no!  Don’t sit up, you stupid thing, you’ll start bleeding all over the place.  You’ve been torn open, and your skin hasn’t finished healing.” 

I snarled at him.  “Then untie me.”  The drug was wearing off and the panic was coming back.  If he’d just take the restraints off, I was pretty sure I could sit there and be calm, but if he was worried about me sitting up he was about to have a whole lot more on his plate if he didn’t get those things off me.

“Fine, fine, just had to keep you from thrashing around while you were unconscious.  Very badly used, they tell me.  At least three different people.” 

“Four,” I said, then wanted to kill myself.  Almost at the same time, Aura spoke.

“Five,” she said.  The good doctor whirled around, his surprise evident on his features.  He’d untied one of the wrist restraints, however, and that was good enough for me to pry the other one off me.  My legs were still tied, but at least I could shift if I had to. 

“Five,” he said.  “Five!  Did you hear her, she can talk!”

While he leapt into the air, as though her one word was the only thing he’d been hoping for his whole life, she advanced on me and untied the bands around my ankles.  Her touch was cool, but didn’t make me want to flee. 

“Five,” she said again.  “Am I right?”

I stared at her, and saw my own history written across her face.  “No,” I said, and she scowled.  “Four this time.”

Her expression lightened again, and I could see why he called her a wild thing.  She was captious and moody, which I could understand – especially if she’d been pulled off the streets and brought here.  “Poor Ayden,” she whispered, and a crash behind her made us both jump; she whirled and was halfway to the door before she realised it was just the doctor.  He’d tripped over some of his own equipment, and was picking it up off the ground, swearing to himself.  I’d have been right beside her if I could have moved. 

I’d never had any siblings; I didn’t know if my parents – having pushed their luck with me – were reluctant to try again, or if something happened and they couldn’t have any more after me, but even in our short acquaintance, I was beginning to think of Aura as a little sister.  I wanted to protect her, to get her back out of this place before it drove us both insane. 

I couldn’t do that from inside the Oubliette, however. 

“I’ll talk to you,” I said, and the doctor spun around to stare at me.  “I changed my mind,” I said, and his face fell.  “I don’t want to go into the Oubliette, so I’ll talk to you.”  His expression shifted again, this time to one of joy. 

“Truly?  You’ll tell me how you survived?  Perhaps you can explain to me why Aura did so as well, maybe get her to tell me herself?”

I glanced at Aura.  She shook her head, so I shrugged.  “I’ll tell you about me,” I said.  “That’s all I can promise.”

“Ah well, good enough.  Thank you my boy, thank you!” He practically jumped up and down in his excitement.  I exchanged a look with Aura, asking her silently if he was always like this.  She grinned at me and ducked her head, understanding without words.  I laughed briefly, but it turned into a moan of pain. 

Immediately the doctor ceased his impromptu revel and came to my bedside.  “You should be sleeping still, and give the healing medicines time to do their work,” he said imperiously.  He acted like a fool, but there was something comforting about him.  And somehow I doubted Aura would stick around if he was cruel or nasty.

He busied himself gathering the necessary bottles, and fed them to me one by one.  By the last I could barely keep my eyes open.  “I am a master of my craft,” he assured me.  “By the time you wake again you ought to be well enough for some light activity.  Of course, I wouldn’t recommend anything strenuous for a month or so, because artificial healing can only do so much and time is still the best of medicines…”

I fell asleep as he talked, lulled by the cadence of his voice and the ghostly echo of a giggle that I may or may not have been imagining. 

 

When I woke again, the pain was almost all gone.  A strange man was changing my clothes, and I accidentally let out a startled yelp.  I was vindicated a moment later when I seemed to have startled him as much as he scared me, because he dropped my legs and backed away, almost as if he were afraid.

“My apologies, young sir,” he said.  “We did not expect you to wake so quickly.  How are you feeling?”   

I thought about this, and then nodded.  “Almost totally better,” I said.  I didn’t want to risk getting out of bed yet, however, and was comfortable and content where I was. 

“Very good, young sir,” he said, then with another apology, finished positioning the waistband of my new trousers on my hips before backing away.  “The doctor will be in shortly to see you; he has been very excited about an … interview?”

I had to smile at that, and nodded to show I understood.  He grinned at me quickly, and then left.  As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait very long; I half-suspected the good doctor of interrupting whatever he’d been at before in order to come speak to me.  So when he asked about my childhood and how I dealt with the various things that cropped up now and then in both Pets and Luminors, I managed to explain to him that it was a fear of being locked away that probably drove the others crazy; perhaps in the beginning it had been something else – probably fear – that prompted society to put those half-breed children into the Oubliette, and when they were there they invariably went mad and destroyed themselves.  Deemed dangerous, they were aborted in the womb, or locked away again if allowed to be born – only to go mad once more. 

He told me enough of Aura’s story that I knew she was similar to me, but instead of running away, she had been orphaned when her house caught fire and raised practically from birth by a homeless woman.  With no walls to contain her, she had grown up mostly unaware of her parentage until slipping into the rage one day, after the woman who’d raised her had been killed in a mugging.  Shortly after that, Hedelforth had found her and brought her to live with him, and she was given the run of the entire Citadel, which was staving off the madness.  And she almost never spoke.  I wondered if it was the rage that had done it, and longed to talk to her about it directly.  The first time I slipped into the rage, I was so horrified by what I’d done that I hadn’t spoken for almost six months – until Lanzi finally badgered me out of it. 

Aura had been silent for three years.  It was a wonder that she didn’t go mad simply from not communicating, I thought, and watched the thoughts play out on the doctor’s face. 

“This makes so much _sense,_ ” he said, awestruck.  “To think that it took two orphan children to explain to me what should have been apparent centuries ago… so many lives might have been saved.”  He shot me a speculative look.  “I wonder if you might consent to giving me some of your blood,” he asked, sounding a bit like a child asking for a toy.  “I would like to run some tests and see if perhaps there is a way to create children who are a mixture of both, but without the undesirables.”

I bristled at his choice of words, and wondered how many of his failed experiments had ended up in the Oubliette, and how many of them wandered into Sublucida by accident or design.  But that wasn’t my concern, and if he found a way to reduce the rages or the conflicting urges between submitting and dominating - that even now were at war within me – then that was all the better.  I agreed. 

He wasted no time in finding a sterile syringe with which to draw my blood, and I barely felt the prick of the needle entering my skin, but as he withdrew the plunger, sucking my blood up into the little tube, I admit it made me feel queasy.

I, who had dismembered four people in a fit of rage – while injured – was nauseous at the sight of my own blood.  I felt pathetic. 

Fighting down the urge to be sick and thoroughly aware that there was almost nothing in my stomach to come up but acid even if I let myself go, I averted my eyes and waited for him to bandage the tiny wound. 

“Thank you, Ayden,” he said with genuine gratitude.  “I very much appreciate it!”  Nearly dancing, he took his prize over to a little box and carefully laid it inside to transport it for testing.

“Well, I appreciate your efforts to help us,” I said. 

“Us?”

“Aura too,” I reminded him.  “We both just got extremely lucky.”

“Ah, my darling Aura,” he said wistfully.  “She’s nearly like my own daughter, you know.  I do wish there was more I could do to help her.  She made it known to me that she wished to spend some time with you.”  His expression became severe.  “I would also like to remind you that she is not quite fourteen years old, and –”

“Sir,” I cut him off.  “Not only do I never want to touch anyone ever again, I’m also thoroughly in love with someone else.  You have nothing to fear from me.” 

“Oh.  Oh, well, that’s alright then.  Thank you for your reassurances.”  All smiles again, he took his box with my blood and scuttled out of the room.  Aura appeared so soon after he left that I’m pretty sure she was lurking somewhere close by, waiting for him to leave.

“I heard you,” she said accusingly, mild reproach in her jade-green eyes.  I was carefully maneuvering myself into a sitting position; the worst of the pain had faded, for which I was immensely grateful, but there was still a lingering soreness in all of my muscles. 

“Excuse me?”

She took a deep breath.  I got the impression that she was making a special case for speaking to me, and I already knew from the doctor that she barely spoke to anyone else.  She hadn’t spoken one word to him in the entire three years he’d been taking care of her, until she spoke up in my defense.  “When he tried to tell you not to touch me.  You have a lover?”

I thought of what it might have been like to sleep with Daemian back before – well, _before._ “No,” I told her sadly.  “He couldn’t touch me…before… and he wouldn’t… touch me…now.” 

“Couldn’t as in wasn’t allowed,” she said.  “Why wouldn’t he now?  Does he not love you?”

Pain lanced through my heart that had nothing to do with the abuse my body had taken recently.  “no,” I said with a wistful smile.  “No, he doesn’t love me.”  I couldn’t disabuse her of the notion that it was love that kept us apart, or lack of it.  I couldn’t bring myself to say that I was ruined, not to that innocently childish face. 

“I think I could love you,” she announced with all the guilelessness of someone half her age.  “Not like a lover, not if you couldn’t love me back, but I think… like a brother.  I never had a brother.”

I choked back tears.  “I never had a sister,” I told her, swallowing around the lump in my throat.  “So why don’t we be each other’s?”

She smiled.  “I would like that.   So tell me about the man you love.”  She settled herself on the end of the bed – not quite touching me, aware as she was of my dislike of contact – and looked at me with an expression that spoke volumes about the story she was _expecting._

“Well,” I said, not quite sure where to begin.  “He’s very handsome, of course.  He’s a Luminor, and he’s very kind.  He’s also extremely interested in clothes.”  She giggled, and I told her about the time I’d spent in his house, when he’d gone out of his way to buy me closets and closets of new clothes.

Clothes, I realised, I’d never worn.  Most of them I’d never even seen.  I wondered if he threw them out when I was gone.  I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and continued telling her about the man I’d accidentally fallen in love with, while working in his house.  Fallen in love with, and never even knew it.  Not until it was much too late.

Later, when she was gone, I lay back in my bed and did something I hadn’t done since I was a small child.

I turned my face into my pillow and cried myself to sleep. 

DIVIDE

The time actually passed quickly while I was in doctor Hedelforth’s care.  I healed quickly and fully – and he even managed to rebreak my wrist and let it heal properly without too much fuss.  It helped that I was deeply unconscious when he did it, but the pleasant wrapping of bandages around it as it healed were a comfort to me, as was the pressure of the splint across my twisted ankle. 

“Never seen so many injuries on one person,” the doctor griped.  “Do you fling yourself into these on purpose?” 

I scowled.  The wrist had been broken in my attempt to murder Mathiru; my ankle twisted as I was running away from Daemian.  The burn scars he could do nothing for, as they were old and well-healed, and I simply resigned myself to them after he finished explaining why there was nothing he could do – short of tearing the skin off and re-growing it, a complicated process that could possibly end with even worse scars than the ones I had.  I wasn’t willing to risk it, though he rose in my opinion for offering the option. 

All in all, it wasn’t a bad life.  My father, mother, and Daemian were all safe, I hadn’t heard anything of Mathiru in ages, and Aura and I had the mutually beneficial friends/siblings thing to figure out.  It couldn’t last.

It didn’t. 

 

Lumi summoned me. 

I had no other clothes than the soft cotton things I’d been wearing around the infirmary – I couldn’t leave to get new ones, no one else had the time, and it was just… _easier_ to wear the soft cotton things the infirmary supplied.  They didn’t chafe or rub, and I could wear them indoors or outside.  Doctor Hedelforth fretted a little bit about my lack of clothing when Lumi summoned me for an audience, but Aura – who, with my guidance, had begun speaking more often – took a more lackadaisical approach to it.  She said that Lumi must have known that I was recovering, and if she took offense to the state of my clothing then it was her own fault for summoning me without warning.

I was tempted to agree with Aura, but I wasn’t quite sure if she understood the importance of Lumi.  Not only was she the patron goddess of our city of Luminesca, she was also the ruler of the entire _planet_ of Incandescia.  I swallowed back a lump in my throat and steeled my backbone.  Doctor Hedelforth escorted me to Lumi’s cathedra and left me just outside the door.  I waited until I was well and truly alone and then knocked on the door. 

“Enter,” said a feminine voice.  It was a deep contralto, rich with resonance.  I took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

My first thought was that someone had made a mistake, and that this couldn’t be Lumi.  She looked like a Luminor, her long hair twisted up in braids that piled around her head and still managed to drag halfway down her back.  It was a silvery blonde, almost white in the well-lit room.  As I came closer I realised she had eyes as deep and black as my own.  The smile she bestowed on me was so mechanical that for a moment I was nearly tempted to turn and run, but then I saw the stream of light from behind her and realised that this image was a holo.  Just a projection. 

“Lumi,” I said, and dropped to one knee. 

“Stand, Aydenlan Claryson,” she said, and I saw the lips move to form the words, though they didn’t come from her mouth.  “We do not require obeisance at this time.  I have long wanted to meet you.”  That mechanical smile again, though as she practiced it seemed to become more natural. 

“Um,” I said, wondering what to call her.  Mistress?  Lady? 

“You prefer to be known as Ayden, is this not true?  Yes, I have heard a great deal about you.  Meeting you like this is wonderful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, at a complete loss.  “Um, heard about me from who?”

The image smiled again, looking horribly lifelike.  “My Luminors seem singularly preoccupied with you, Ayden,” she said. 

“Um?”

“Oh!”  She looked around, biting her lower lip, and for a moment the incongruity threw me.  She looked nervous, but it had to be a show.  What _was_ she?  “Forgive me.  I have not offered you a place to sit or some refreshments.  Would you like something?”

I stood in stunned silence as she gestured to a couch, and with a quick gesture a small android scurried from a place on the wall, bearing a tray with a glass of something and some biscuits.  “Thank you,” I said, bewildered, and sat down when she gestured.  The holo sat beside me, smiling again.

“I regret that I cannot join you.  It was something of a whim to call you here to visit, and I did not have time to don my physical body.”

“Don it?” I had a horrible mental image of her zipping up a human suit around a mechanical body, and had to repress my shudder. 

“You are a delight!  No wonder they all speak so highly of you.  Even my beloved Doctor Hedelforth has nothing but praise for you.  My dear Ayden, I am merely a holographic representation forged by particles of light arranged in a pleasing fashion.  My true form is here –” and she gestured behind her to the massive wall.  I looked closer at it and realised it was a computer.  Lumi was a machine!  “ –and if I am _expecting_ guests, I can download a bit of myself into an android and be physical.  As I have said, it was a whim that called you here today.  I did not have time to prepare myself, and so I apologise.”

“No need,” I said, feeling faint.  How many people knew this?  The Luminors, surely, as they were her personal guardians and police.  Daemian had known.  I took a sip of the drink she’d offered me to settle my nerves.  It tingled pleasantly against my tongue.  “How can I help you today?”

“Oh, Ayden.”  She fluttered her eyes coquettishly, and I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or disgusted.  I settled for being neutral and took another sip of my drink.  “I just wanted to have a little chat.  There is also the matter I needed to discuss… why you have near broken one of my favourite Luminors to pieces?”

“Pardon?”

Her smile became dangerous.  “Luminor Daemian recently came to me, begging for my help in seeking you out.  It seems he cannot keep track of you when you keep running away and vanishing.”

 _Daemian._  

“He was most distressed.  I told him, of course, that you were here recovering from injuries you sustained in Lower Luminesca.  He has agreed to stay on while you regain your strength, and then I believe he wants to have a word or two with you himself.  As for me, I think just a tiny taste should be good enough.  I am most displeased by your behaviour.  When you are chosen by a Luminor – the paragon of my society, to be denied _nothing_ – you do not _flee_ him like a common criminal.”

She waved her hand at me, and suddenly my mind was awash in pain.  I think I may have screamed, but the only thing I was aware of was the memories of the assault in Lower Luminesca – it was as though it were happening to me all over again. 

Just as quickly as it had started, it was gone.  I found myself on the floor beside the couch, my nose pressed into the fresh-scented carpet.  The drink was slowly soaking into the floor a few feet away from me. 

It took me a few moments, but I gradually picked myself back up and collapsed against the couch.  Lumi didn’t seem to have moved. 

“I consider you suitably punished,” she said, heedless of my state.  I was shaking all over, and could barely focus on her.  “I now order you to return to your rooms and this time when my darling Daemian calls on you, do _not_ leave him behind or I shall be forced to do something unpleasant.  And do remember that there is _nothing_ that happens within the confines of Luminesca that I do not know about.  Have a nice day.”  She bestowed a warm smile on me, and I staggered up out of the couch, blindly making my way back to the door.  It swung open and I fell through it. 

I think someone was calling me, but I was so overwhelmed by the sudden flashback – hallucination, nightmare – whatever it had been, that I was quite literally incapable of focusing on the here-and-now.  I was vaguely aware of someone pulling me to my feet and leading me somewhere, and it didn’t matter where, as long as it was somewhere other than that room. 

“He’s here,” I heard myself say.  “ _Here._ ”

“Who’s here?”

On some level I realised I recognised the voice, and after a few seconds of thought I realised it was Aura.  I couldn’t  bring myself to say his name, though, not with the horror fresh in my mind. 

“Ayden, you’re frightening me.  Who’s here?”

I shook my head, but apparently she was a lot quicker on the uptake than anyone gave her credit for because a moment later she gasped.

“It’s your love.  That new Luminor I saw downstairs, that’s him isn’t it?”

“I can’t stay here,” I said.  “I can’t face him.”

She threw me down and I recognised the narrow bed I’d been sleeping on since arriving in the Citadel.  “Don’t be a complete idiot, Ayden, of course you can face him.  That’s why he’s here, you know.”

I struggled to bring her face into focus.  “You don’t understand,” I said.  “I _can’t._ ”

“You most certainly will!”  With her hands on her hips, she reminded me of a mother.  Maybe not mine; I couldn’t remember enough about my own mother to know whether or not she’d ever looked at me like that, mixed disapproval and worry radiating out from her figure. 

I covered my face with my hands, trying to deal with the fresh onslaught.  I hurt all over, just like I had – after.  I couldn’t tell how she’d done it – if she’d just brought up the memory or if she’d done something more sinister.  I would never trust her again, that was for sure.  I didn’t care what that might say about me, and I knew she was in charge of cities all over the planet. But she’d specified that nothing went on in _Luminesca._   If I could just get myself to Sublucida, or better yet, somewhere far away from here – the other side of the planet seemed nice – she’d never know and I’d never have to deal with that again. 

The unfortunate part of hiding my face was that I had no idea what Aura was doing.  It wasn’t until I heard the fabric snaps closing that I realised she was doing anything at all, and then she tugged and my arms hit the bed. 

My heart stopped.  She’d put those restraints on me again, and it was a testament to how fucked up I was right then that I didn’t even notice until she was done.  “Aura!”

“Ayden!” Her voice was firm.  “You are going to stay _right here_ until you tell me why you’re so hell-bent on getting away from someone you told me not too long ago was the only person you’ve ever fallen in love with!”

“Don’t say hell,” I said weakly, but she ignored me.

**INTERLUDE HERE**

From the corridor, Daemian could hear everything going on in the room.  The doctor escorted him to the most advantageous spot, and then surprisingly backed off a few feet.  Daemian looked in through the one-way mirror and listened to the conversation going on in the little room.  He’d been so sure it was Ayden on the outskirts of Lower Luminesca, only to have the boy flee him like the Darkness itself was after him.  Afterward, he hadn’t been sure – so he’d gone to see Lumi.

What he hadn’t been expecting was to be told to sit tight, the situation would be taken care of.  He hadn’t expected to see Ayden here, and in such horrible shape.  His hair was much longer than the last time he’d seen the younger man, and there was a haunted quality to his eyes that hadn’t been there before.  It made the crimson rage swim behind Daemian’s eyes, but without a dedicated target the rage was impotent and wasteful. 

So he simply sat back and listened.

“You don’t understand,” Ayden was saying.  “I _can’t._ ”

“You most certainly will!”  Hedelforth’s daughter was a little hellion, though it hadn’t been obvious in the quiet, shy way she’d approached him when he first arrived.  Apparently Ayden just brought that side of everyone out.  He watched Ayden cover his face, something Aura took advantage of by preparing some sort of restraint.  Daemian waited until she’d fastened both of them around Ayden’s slender wrists and tightened the straps so that he was bound securely to the bed.  The look of sheer terror that passed over Ayden’s face was as unfamiliar to Daemian as the haunted spectre in his eyes. 

“Aura!” he shouted, but she shouted right back at him.  

“You are going to stay right here until you tell me why you’re so hell-bent on getting away from someone you told me not too long ago was the only person you’ve ever fallen in love with!”

“Don’t say hell,” Ayden murmured, but Daemian barely heard him.  _Fallen in love with._   _In love._   It was like a revelation for Daemian; suddenly so many things made sense.  His own feelings became clear and he wondered why it had taken a little slip of a girl shouting at the only person _he’d_ ever fallen for to show it to him. 

“I’ll say any Darkness-damned thing I fucking want to,” Aura shouted at him, sounding so very much like Ayden himself that it caused a pang in Daemian’s heart to hear it.  “I want to hear you say why you’re afraid to be near him!”

Ayden was afraid?  Looking closer, Daemian realised it was true.  The boy was shaking as is terrified, and Daemian silently vowed to tear apart whoever had put that look in his boy’s eyes.  The words began so softly and came tumbling out in such a rush that Daemian was hard-pressed to say when they had begun. 

“Please, Aura, please, you have to take the restraints off.  I can’t – you _have_ to.  They remind me of… _him._ ”

“Your love?”

The look he gave her was so scathing that Daemian was surprised she didn’t recoil in actual pain.  “No,” he said simply, imbuing his tone with such scorn that Daemian himself was tempted to recoil.  “I can’t say his name.  But he put the scars on my wrists.”

Daemian realised with a jolt that Ayden – always cautious of being trapped somewhere – had developed a paralysing fear of being restrained because of Mathiru.  The last he’d seen of his former friend, he was racing to outrun the Eluminors, the elite police who managed conflicts within the Luminor divisions.  There was a rumour going around that he had fathered Ayden on Clary, though everyone who knew any of them knew that she’d gotten the surgery to reverse the sterility only _after_ she’d left him and begun sleeping with Morgan.  Something told him that Ayden might know why the Eluminors were chasing after Mathiru, but now was certainly not the time to question him. Not when he might finally learn why Ayden had been on the run from him for so long.  

“I’ll let you go,” Aura promised.  “Just as soon as you explain to me why you’re being such a flaming coward!”

Ayden squinched his eyes shut.  “I’m not good enough anymore!”

Daemian felt his mouth drop open.  Part of his mind was amused to notice that Aura had had the same reaction. 

“What do you mean, ‘not good enough’?”

Shaking hard enough to rattle the bed, Ayden lay back against the pillows.  “How many different ways do you want me to say it?”  Now that the words were out, he seemed to be calming slightly.  “Dirty.  _Ruined._   I can’t be near him.  He’s… too good.  I don’t deserve him.”

Aura groped for a chair and sank into it.  “I still don’t understand,” she whispered.  Ayden sighed deeply, as if in great pain. 

“Do you think he wants someone else’s castoffs?  I barely told him anything about what … _he_ did to me, and I saw the look on his face as he threw himself away from me.  I disgusted him!”

 _Not true!_ Daemian’s heart clenched around the words he longed to say.  How could he explain?  He’d been disgusted by _Mathiru,_ horrified by what he had done, not Ayden! 

“I told him the barest minimum of what went on while I was with _him_ and he acted as though being near me would defile him.  Is it any wonder that I feel I’m not good enough?  It’s because I’ve been there before.  And now…” his voice broke, and Daemian strained against the glass, concerned that he would miss something if he so much as breathed too hard.  “If he didn’t want to be near me after another Luminor was through with me, how do you think he’s going to stand to be in the same _city_ as I am now that I’ve been used by … others?”

Daemian fell back into the chair, his legs unable to support him.  He glared at Hedelforth, who blinked nervously.  “What is he talking about?”

The doctor swallowed.  “After wandering around Lower Luminesca and injuring his leg, he was assaulted by four men.” 

Daemian felt the rage slipping over him.  “Assaulted?”

“S-sexually,” Hedelforth squeaked.  “The physical damage was minimal, only what you’d expect after being used like that, but I am afraid that the psychological damage in addition to the psychosis already suffered from his first abduction by Luminor Mathiru – well,” the doctor broke off and swallowed again.  “Well, he’s not going to be the same after something like that.” 

Daemian controlled his rage with supreme effort and turned his attention back to the small room.

“Listen, Ayden,” Aura said.  “I’m sure he doesn’t think like that.”

The bleak, dark look in Ayden’s eyes was heartbreaking.  Daemian longed to simply burst through the doors and erase it from his expression. 

“You don’t know that,” Ayden said accusingly.  “I don’t know that.  All I know is how he reacted before.  What.

 


End file.
